ARX Series
Most Read on ARX
(March - May 2020)
Overview
ARX is designed to bring together investment professionals in Asia Pacific and other regions to share their views, knowledge and experience, so that they can learn from their peers and thought-leaders. Below are the most often downloaded posts in the last three months.
To browse or search ARX's repository of more than 3000 posts, select "Research" in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
Dissecting the Global Liquidity Crisis
The quarantines introduced in March 2020 have brought economic activity to a global standstill, triggering a bear market never seen before. The panic-selling across asset classes is considered unprecedented, even for crises. What are the safe havens?
12 May 2020 | Leveraged Growth: Aswini Bajaj, Aditya Bhatia, Rajul Jain, Ritwik Bhawsinghka, Muskaan Jain, Sonia Keswani, Racheta Chaudhary, Sudakshina Saha, Priyanka Dugar
Fintech 2020: Technological Innovations in the Financial Services Industry
This report highlights a handful of fintech innovators in Islamic finance from around the globe. It defines the fintech landscape, presents recent trends, and helps understand how fintech can revolutionize the industry and Islamic finance.
19 May 2020 | CFA Society Pakistan
WEBINAR: Deep Dive into VIX and Market Volatility
Known as the market's "fear gauge", the VIX index and its related measures covering equity, currency and fixed income markets across the globe, have become go-to measures of uncertainty and turmoil in markets. How does VIX encode meaningful predictions about the future behaviour of the markets?
12 May 2020 | Tim Edwards, PhD; Franki Chung, CFA
WEBINAR: Cashless Payment Industry - Sector Analysis
The webinar explores the growth potential and the evolving landscape of the cashless payment industry. It highlights the most important competencies a company needs to thrive in this sector.
29 April 2020 | CFA Institute: Eunice Chu, FCCA; Danny Leong; Alan Lok, CFA; Serhii Karpenko; Rostyslav Dyuk
COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Influence on Safe Havens: An Examination of Gold, T-bills, T-bonds, U.S. Dollar, and Stablecoin
Gold has lost its safe haven status against stock market losses during the COVID-19 pandemic as investors show preference for liquid assets. US Treasuries and the US dollar, however, continue acting as safe havens from stock market losses.
1 May 2020 | Muhammad A. Cheema, Kenneth R. Szulczyk
VIDEO: Practical Applications for VIX
What is (and isn’t) actually implied by VIX data? Steve Blumenthal, CIO at CMG Capital Management Group joins S&P DJI’s Ed Ware and Hamish Preston to explore what VIX data means and how to put Wall Street’s fear gauge to work.
23 January 2020 | S&P Dow Jones Indices: Steve Blumenthal, Ed Ware, Hamish Preston | Video: 8 min.
SEMINAR: Investing through Booms and Busts
In this recorded seminar, Dr. Vikram Mansharamani applies a combination of practitioner experience and academic perspective to help audiences navigate the cross-currents of global economic, financial and political developments.
28 August 2019 | Dr. Vikram Mansharamani, CFA Society Philippines | Video: 1 hr 21 min.
ESG Disclosure in Asia: Key Findings from Hong Kong-Listed Companies
This webinar presentation includes a summary of research by CFA Institute on ESG disclosures in Asia-Pacific, and of a survey by BDO and PolyU SPEED on the performance of ESG reporting among Hong Kong-listed companies in 2018/19.
5 May 2020 | Piotr Zembrowski, CFA; Ricky Cheng; Dr. Artie Ng
ESG in Credit 2020: White Paper
Interest in the application of ESG to debt capital markets is growing, as asset owners demand reports on ESG performance of their investments. Fitch’s ESG Relevance Scores provide insight on how ESG factors affect credit risk.
17 April 2020 | Fitch Ratings: Andrew Steel, Mervyn Tang
WEBINAR: Sales Inducements in Asia Pacific
Based on a report by CFA Institute, the webinar reviews regulatory and industry practices around sales and distribution of mutual funds in Australia, Hong Kong, India and Singapore, with a focus on sales commissions, fees and their effect on mis-selling.
24 April 2020 | CFA Institute: Mary Leung, CFA, Sara Cheng, JD
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Impact and Risk Response Guide
This guide aims to provide insights into the impact of COVID-19. It gives general risk response guidance for companies to consider when deploying business continuity planning measures to combat the epidemic.
30 March 2020 | BDO: Ricky Cheng
The Valuation of Low Volatility
Low volatility strategies typically perform well when markets decline. They have been popular in recent years and some claim they are overvalued. It is possible to identify environments when low volatility strategies offer more bang for the buck?
20 February 2020 | S&P Dow Jones Indices: Fei Mei Chan, Craig J. Lazzara
Download PDF >WEBINAR: Climate Change Integration in the Investment Process
Climate change presents a range of physical and transition risks for business and the financial industry. Investment professionals need education and tools to analyse and mitigate these risks. CFA Institute's Matt Orsagh presents an overview of the topic, followed by a panel discussion of industry experts in Asia-Pacific.
9 April 2020 | CFA Institute | Video: 1 hr 11 min.
This publication has been assigned 1 Continuing Education (CE) credit under the guidelines of the CFA Institute Continuing Education Program. We encourage CFA Institute members to login to the CE tracking tool to self-document these credits. You can find more CE content in the Continuing Education section of ARX.
Portfolio Factor Allocation Schemes
Factor allocation decisions are becoming a prominent consideration for factor investors. Which factors to allocate to, and in what magnitude, has a significant impact on investment outcomes and should be a key focus of investors.
1 April 2020 | FTSE Russell
Bitcoin's Stock-to-Flow Pricing Methodology
The stock-to-flow pricing model, commonly used for gold, is applied to bitcoin. The upcoming reduction of new bitcoins coming into circulation (“halving”), expected in May 2020, will put this model to test.
3 April 2020 | Thomas Kuhn, CFA
Investing in Listed Real Estate: Practical Considerations
Real estate is a popular asset class. One of the ways to get exposure to it is via listed real estate companies. In this report we are looking at practical considerations of investing in listed real estate.
10 October 2019 | FTSE Russell
Insights into the Economic Consequences of the Covid-19 Epidemic: ACCA Economic Briefing
The measures introduced by governments to slow the spread of COVID-19 are having a dramatic effect on economic activity. As the global economy is heading into a severe recession, ACCA’s chief economist, Michael Taylor, presents latest insights.
24 March 2020 | ACCA: Michael Taylor
WEBINAR: Coronavirus Contagion – A Market Assessment
In this webinar, Philip Lawlor, managing director, global markets research discusses the impact of the coronavirus on market returns and gauges its effect on the global economy, the credit cycle and market drivers, such as profits and valuations.
5 March 2020 | FTSE Russell | Video: 26 min.
Eye in the Sky: Private Satellites and Government Macro Data
Advancements in satellite technology have made it possible to estimate macro-economic variables using commercial satellite data. Research suggests that such estimates can undermine governments’ control over macro-economic announcements.
31 December 2019 | Abhiroop Mukherjee, George Panayotov, Janghoon Shon
Guesstimating Unemployment in China
What is the real unemployment picture in China? Data analysis suggests that even though work resumption in big cities continues as COVID-19 infections ebb, urban unemployment is surging and will get worse.
30 March 2020 | BOCOM International: Hao Hong, CFA
Aviation Finance and Leasing: How Have Public Aircraft Leasing Companies Performed?
The aviation finance and leasing industry has seen large growth since the 1950s. This paper offers a look at the public aircraft lessors index performance against benchmarks and a performance analysis of the four acquired public listed lessors.
4 March 2020 | KPMG Ireland: David Yu, Ph.D., CFA
Download PDF >Towards a Digitised and Flexible Future: Asia’s Recruitment Trends - The 2020 Hays Asia Salary Guide
A growing caution from employers in response to market uncertainty, undimmed expectations of candidates, a growing acknowledgement of skill gaps and their impact on innovation are among trends highlighted in the annual recruitment and salary guide.
20 March 2020 | Hays
The Coronavirus Epidemic: Implications for Markets
The economic and market impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus may be much larger than those of the 2003 SARS virus. Why? China is a much bigger part of the global economy than it was 17 years ago.
12 February 2020 | MSCI: Zhen Wei, Jun Wang, Thomas Verbraken
Read Article >India's Quality Bubble: How Long Can the Bipolar Market Continue?
Indian equity markets have never witnessed as high a valuation in a few stocks for such a prolonged period as we see today. We attempt to unearth and understand the valuation bubble in perceived quality stocks in India.
30 October 2018 | Sunil Singhania, CFA, Abakkus Asset Managers LLP
Insights into the Economic Consequences of the Covid-19 Epidemic: ACCA Economic Briefing
The measures introduced by governments to slow the spread of COVID-19 are having a dramatic effect on economic activity. As the global economy is heading into a severe recession, ACCA’s chief economist, Michael Taylor, presents latest insights.
24 March 2020 | ACCA: Michael Taylor
What Goes Down Must Come Up: Investigating Companies with Negative Book Value
In this paper, we attempted to study the historical performance of US companies with negative book value relative to the broader US equities, as well as to identify the factors that drive the performance of companies with negative book value.
17 July 2019 | Solactive AG
Goodwill Amortization Debate
A series of papers in which the International Valuation Standards Council explores whether goodwill is economically a wasting asset, and if so, if the life and implicit decline in value can be reasonably estimated and supported.
8 January 2020 | International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC), Kevin Prall
Part 1: Is Goodwill a Wasting Asset? >
Part 2: Information Value of the Impairment Test >
Fighting COVID-19, Chinese Style
As the world fights COVID-19, governments’ resolve and monetary easing will induce technical rebound in the near term, although the market will probably retest its prior low. But the longer-term economic outlook is turning increasingly clouded.
15 March 2020 | BOCOM International: Hao Hong, CFA
Download PDF: < English > < Chinese >
Target Factor Exposure: Investment Applications and Solutions
Factor portfolio construction typically focuses on selecting stocks with desirable factor characteristics. An alternative approach — tilting — achieves desired increases in factor exposure while maintaining appropriate levels of diversification.
19 February 2020 | FTSE Russell: Andy Dougan
This publication has been assigned 1 Continuing Education (CE) credit under the guidelines of the CFA Institute Continuing Education Program. We encourage CFA Institute members to login to the CE tracking tool to self-document these credits. You can find more CE content in the Continuing Education section of ARX.
Rethinking Commodities
Commodities historically have been used for diversification and inflation protection. But they can also be used as building blocks to express investment themes, as tactical trading tools, and as a component of a multi-asset risk premia allocation.
5 February 2020 | S&P Dow Jones Indices: Fiona Boal, Jim Wiederhold
Download PDF >ESG Evaluation of SSE 50 Index Constituent Stocks on Epidemic Control
An analysis of a company’s behavior under an emergency such as the COVID-19 epidemic helps evaluate its resilience. The ESG Epidemic Control Valuation model developed by SynTao Green Finance serves as a supplement to the overall ESG assessment.
20 March 2020 | SynTao Green Finance
Download PDF: < English > < Chinese >
SPIVA Scorecards: An Overview
S&P Indices versus Active (SPIVA) scorecards are semiannual scorecards published by S&P Dow Jones Indices that compare the performance of active equity and fixed income mutual funds against their benchmarks over a number of time horizons.
19 February 2020 | S&P Dow Jones Indices
Download PDF >About the Author(s)
Director: Scott Lee
Content manager, Editor: Piotr Zembrowski, CFA
Coordinator: Natalie Yiu