Fixed Income
Markets frequently fail, despite their pristine reputation among capitalists. One way is the many actions taken by buyers and sellers to tilt a transaction in their favor. These visible hands create asymmetries between the parties. Jason Voss, CFA, explains.
High Yield Debt succeeds as a concise and thorough primer on the speculative-grade debt market, including not only high-yield bonds but also leveraged loans and other related asset types. The author, who manages a credit hedge fund, presents sound conclusions on such controversial topics as the impact of exchange-traded funds on market volatility. The book is an invaluable resource for its target market of institutional decision makers.
In the final analysis, can we truly measure the emissions of our portfolio? Or understand what the actual “carbon footprint” is? No, not really, says Christopher K. Merker, CFA, but it is becoming easier.
Have the advances in technology, computing power, and data made the markets more efficient? It’s “not clear,” according to Nobel laureate Eugene Fama.
Jason Voss, CFA, provides his picks for Weekend Reads for Investors. This edition curates stories on the potential repeal of the tax deduction corporations in the United States receive on debt payments, the end of Big Oil, how we can recognize machine consciousness, and more.
Larry Cao, CFA, discusses Campbell R. Harvey's definition of blockchain; Lauren Foster describes the continuing debate between Robert J. Shiller and Jeremy Siegel; Dougal Williams, CFA, suggests investors focus on shooting par in the investment market; Martin Fridson, CFA, reviews The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers; and Mimmi Kheddache Jendeby provides some investing lessons from Epictetus, in the top Enterprising Investor posts from June.
The US economy is not just in recovery, it is now in an expansion, according to Abby Joseph Cohen, CFA.
"What if, instead of trying to beat the market, investors focused on outperforming other investors by earning investing’s equivalent to par?" asks Dougal Williams, CFA.
The author provides a thorough guide to the key trading strategies used by hedge funds and offers an overview of active management. He also explains such diverse approaches as quantitative, macro, dedicated short bias, and many more.
Post-financial crisis, the volume of outstanding bonds has grown. At the same time, however, consolidation among banks and broker/dealers has cut the number of market makers, and new regulations have reduced the capital these companies can commit to fixed-income inventories.