ARX Series
Most Read on ARX
(April - June 2021)
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 4,000 posts, select "Research" in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
WEBINAR: Future of Investing in Disruptive Innovation - Leadership Dialogue
The extraordinary AUM growth and outperformance of ARK Invest in recent times has created a huge following in Asia. Catherine Wood, Founder CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, joins Ms. Yimei Li, CFA, member of the CFA Institute Board of Governors and CEO of China Asset Management Co. Ltd., a top asset manager in China, for a conversation about disruptive innovation.
25 March 2021 | CFA Institute, MSCI, Wind | Video: 59 min.
WEBINAR: Financial Performance of Impact Investments (Part 2 of the Impact Investing webinar series)
Impact investing aims to generate measurable environmental or social outcomes alongside financial return. Impact objectives must be considered together with financial objectives, risk, liquidity and resource capacity. When making investment decisions, impact investors seek to balance these factors, and optimize the way in which they deploy capital, in order to maximize their desired outcomes.
27 May 2021 | CFA Institute | Video: 1 hr 3 min.
WEBINAR: ESG and Sustainability - International Policies and Reporting Frameworks
As ESG and sustainable investing become centre stage, concerns that the inconsistency and variation in ESG-related disclosures, terminology, and investment approaches may give rise to confusion and misunderstanding has also risen. A slew of new regulations and standards globally are being implemented to tackle the issue of greenwashing, raise transparency and disclosure for the benefit of investor protection and product development.
9 June 2021 | CFA Institute | Video: 1 hr 15 min.
WEBINAR: ESG Integration in Sovereign Bonds (Part 4 of the webinar series "ESG in Credit")
As appetite for ESG investments has grown, so has the question of if and how ESG factors may affect the analysis of sovereign debt issues. Risks from climate change, including the associated policy responses, have been under particular focus. For example, countries that are major fossil fuel exporters are most exposed to climate change transition risk, giving rise to stranded assets and significant uncertainties, with knock-on implications for debt servicing and repayment capabilities.
25 May 2021 | CFA Institute, Fitch Ratings | Video: 1 hr 18 min.
COVID-19 Impact on Bangladesh Economy
Like in most other nations, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented shock to the Bangladesh economy. The report explores the possible impact of the ongoing pandemic on the broad economy and major industries of the country.
22 June 2020 | LankaBangla Asset Management Co. Ltd.
Employee Happiness Predicts Higher Stock Prices: Do Health and Safety Play a Part in Your Investment Strategies?
ESG analysis that used NLP processing discovered that companies with safe and happy employees outperform their peers in the public markets. How can ESG analysis of workplace sentiment help investors seeking outperformance?
28 April 2021 | Richard Peterson
WEBINAR: Sustainable and Responsible Investment
Experts from World Bank Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia, Securities Commission Malaysia, MSCI, EPF, CFA Society Malaysia, and CFA Institute discuss industry trends, opportunities and challenges focusing on sustainable and responsible investment practices with a focus on Malaysia's ambition as a sustainability-first nation.
4 February 2021 | Justin Ong, CFA; Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar; Firas Raad, PhD; Mary Leung, CFA; Chitra Hepburn, Mohamed Rozani Osman, Salmah Bee Mohd Mydin, Rohaya Mohammad Yusof | Video: 1 hr 45 min.
WEBINAR: Social and Sustainable Sukuk (Part 4 of the Islamic Finance Webinar Series)
With the global issuance of sustainable bonds reaching a record US$100 billion in the second quarter of 2020, and Shari’ah principles supporting profit-based initiatives with socio-economic impact, it should come as no surprise that social impact Sukuk are fast becoming a popular financing instrument.
3 June 2021 | CFA Institute | Video: 1 hr 39 min.
AUDIO: The Emergence of Central Bank Digital Currencies
How do central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) differ from traditional money and cryptocurrencies? Why are CBDCs appealing to policymakers? Will CBDCs loosen the pre-eminent role of the US dollar in the global FX market?
11 April 2021 | City National Bank: Alvin Tan, David Atkinson | Audio: 18 min.
The Long Waves in Commodities: Three Centuries of Evidence
Our proprietary wave index, based on three centuries of historical commodity price data meticulously collated by our predecessors, shows that a period of elevated and intense commodity price movements lies ahead.
25 May 2021 | BOCOM International: Hao Hong, CFA
Singapore Is at the Heart of Asia’s Green Energy Revolution
Hydrogen is emerging as a key element of the clean energy transition, with governments around the world enacting green policies as part of their COVID-19 recovery efforts.
30 April 2021 | Eurasia Group, SGX Research
WEBINAR: Venture Capital: What Does It Hold for the Global Capital Market of Tomorrow?
Venture Capital (VC) has been an important part the modern capital markets. The success or failure of a growing private company has often been gauged by the size of their round B or C funding. Has the traditional route of private company relying on organic growth and bank loans disappeared?
13 April 2021 | CFA Institute | Video: 60 min.
WEBINAR: Big Data for ESG Investing
Haishan Wu, vice general manager of AI department at Webank, shares insights on how Webank leverages AI to generate proprietary real-time data for ESG investing from a variety of sources, including satellite images, media reporting, and social media sentiment.
15 April 2021 | CFA Institute, Institute of Financial Technologists of Asia | Video: 1 hr 17 min.
WEBINAR: Japan Reinventing Itself as a Global Financial Hub: Challenges and Policy Choices
Despite its many advantages, Japan trails other financial centres, especially with regards to attracting foreign talent and playing a regional role. This webinar, organized by CFA Society Japan and FSA explores how Japan can revitalize its financial sector and expand its role as an international financial hub.
26 April 2021 | CFA Society Japan, Financial Services Agency | Video: 1 hr 5 min.
Cashless Payments Industry: Sector Analysis - Practitioner's Brief
This practitioner's brief summarizes the CFA Institute 29 April 2020 webinar, which explored 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
Sukuk Bond Market-Making at the London Stock Exchange, 2011-20
We examine the evolution and the explosive growth rate of sukuk on the London Stock Exchange, and then provide directions on future research aimed at sukuk pricing and market-making.
26 April 2021 | Mohamed Ariff, Calvin W. H. Cheong
WEBINAR: Economic and Market Impacts of Climate Change
A presentation of the CFA Institute report “Climate Change Analysis in the Investment Process”, followed by a discussion of economic and market implications of climate change, carbon pricing, and recent developments in carbon markets.
2 February 2021 | CFA Institute | Video: 59 min.
WEBINAR: Index ETFs, Options, and Futures - Myths vs. Facts
As technology becomes an integral part of more and more aspects of our lives, our understanding of what constitutes a "technology company" is continuing to broaden and evolve. In this webinar, we talk about the formation and features of the Hang Seng TECH Index, the differences between active and passive investing strategies and how specific theme ETFs would possibly outperform active funds.
28 January 2021 | CFA Institute, CFA Society Hong Kong | Video: 59 min.
WEBINAR: Future of Sustainability in Investment Management - War for ESG Talents?
In late 2020, CFA Institute published a report titled “Future of Sustainability in Investment Management” in which we explored the influences and drivers fuelling the sustainability trend and set out enablers and actions for investment firms, including the need to better integrate sustainability data and to develop sustainability expertise to meet client expectations with innovative products. Rhodri Preece, CFA, senior head of industry research at CFA Institute, shares key highlights and takeaways from the study.
23 March 2021 | CFA Institute, Hong Kong Green Finance Association | Video: 61 min.
Why Are Chinese Stocks Underperforming in a Recovery? / 为什么经济跑赢，股票跑输？
The return spread of high-yield vs. investment-grade bonds is now at one of its highest levels of the past decade, and appears to be rolling over. It hints at the market’s waning risk appetite.
垃圾债与投资级债券的回报率差目前处于过去10年的最高水平附近，而且似乎在继续收窄。这暗示着市场的风险偏好正在减弱。
15 April 2021 | BOCOM International, Hao HONG
Combining Equity and Fixed Income Listed Infrastructure: Approaches and Outcomes
In this paper, we demonstrate that combining listed equity and fixed income infrastructure in a single portfolio improves its risk and return profile compared to a pure infrastructure fixed income or equity portfolio.
28 March 2021 | FTSE Russell: Sergiy Lesyk
WEBINAR: The Future of Blockchain - Blockchain Pushes Information Economics to the Next Stage, Trust Economics
Prof. Eric Maskin of Harvard University and Chen Long, Luohan Academy Executive Director, discuss the operation and mechanism design of blockchain technology, information asymmetry, signaling and other economic issues.
25 October 2020 | Luohan Academy: Ming Qiu, Ruobing Han | Video: 1 hr 3 min.
Structural Change in Bond Markets: The Role of ETFs
Bond market structure changed in recent years as regulatory change, concern about bank capital adequacy, and the GFC combined to move bond markets towards exchanges and electronic venues. ETFs facilitated the developments, helping underlying liquidity.
20 April 2021 | FTSE Russell: Robin Marshall
Indexing Liquid Alternatives
Alternative investment strategies, including absolute return long-short, risk parity, global macro, or relative value, have historically been used only by the most sophisticated market participants, such as institutional investors and hedge funds.
1 March 2021 | S&P Dow Jones Indices: Tianyin Cheng, Phillip Brzenk, Rupert Watts, Fiona Boal
ESG Scores and Beyond: Contribution of themes to ESG Ratings - a statistical assessment
With the attention of investors being increasingly focused on sustainability issues, awareness of ESG ratings characteristics is essential, as it enables a better understanding of their meaning. This paper answers “What themes matter most in ESG?"
20 April 2021 | FTSE Russell: Kevin Ratsimiveh, Ruben Haalebos
China Market Strategy: Value Striking Back
Sticking to growth means extrapolating linearly the growth during the pandemic. Such thinking shows a true lack of imagination, which is essential to long-term growth investing. And such thinking is nothing but downright pessimism.
29 March 2021 | BOCOM International: Hao HONG, CFA
VIDEO: Understanding How India Can Develop A Robust ETF Market
What can India learn from developed markets where we see ETF sponsors establishing a footprint early on?
8 February 2021 | S&P Dow Jones Indices | Video: 51 min.
WEBINAR: The Rise of Decentralized Finance: Disruption or Opportunity?
Decentralized finance (DeFi) – financial products and services based on the blockchain technology – has seen a surge of interest and new developments in 2020. New applications in areas such as lending, insurance, derivatives, and exchanges, expand our understanding of what services DeFi can support. Experts from BCG Platinion and Crypto.com discuss trends, challenges, and opportunities in decentralized finance.
8 December 2020 | CFA Institute, BCG Platinion, Crypto.com | Video: 1 hr 14 min.
How to Build a Simple ML-Powered Stock Movement Classifier
We harness computing power and machine learning to build a classifier tool to predict whether a stock will go up or down on any given day. It helps investment managers boost their predicting power in their investment management practices.
5 January 2021 | Analytics Vidhya: Zain Farrukh
WEBINAR: ESG Integration in Fixed Income in Practice
In this webinar, second in the series on ESG in credit, we have invited investment managers and asset owners to provide real life examples of how ESG is integrated into fixed income in practice, such as ESG evaluation methods, performance measurements, reporting practices and the design of ESG investment products.
17 November 2020 | CFA Institute ARX | Video: 1 hr 11 min.
2021 ESG Trends to Watch
Climate, ESG bubbles, disclosure, social inequality, biodiversity — the topics don’t get much bigger or more systemic. Here’s our analysis of the five ESG trends that will matter most to companies and their investors in 2021.
7 December 2020 | MSCI Inc: Linda-Eling Lee, Meggin Thwing Eastman, Arne Philipp Klug
An Introduction to Sustainable Investment
What is sustainable investing? Who uses is? Why is interest in it on the rise? What impact does a sustainability focus have on performance? How can investors implement a sustainable investment portfolio?
22 September 2020 | FTSE Russell
WEBINAR: Practices and Opportunities in Islamic Capital Markets
Capital market practitioners and Islamic finance experts discuss the fundamental principles of Shariah law governing capital markets, opportunities for companies to issue sukuk for funding projects, and more. Part 3 of the Islamic finance webinar series.
15 December 2020 | CFA Institute, CFA Society Indonesia, CFA Society Malaysia, CFA Society Pakistan | Video: 1 hr 32 min.
WEBINAR: The Impact of Covid-19 on Pensions
Industry experts discuss the changes to the 2020 Mercer CFA Institute Global Pensions Index and the diverse efforts by governments across the world to support their communities’ health and finances.
19 January 2021 | CFA Institute | Video: 1 hr 7 min.
WEBINAR: Building the FinTech Workforce of the Future
As Covid-19 forces governments and the industry to focus on workforce skills, the future is shaped by the convergence of technology and traditional finance. The panel discusses its implications for education, training, future job opportunities, and how this is being addressed at a macro (governmental) and micro (companies and individuals) level.
3 March 2021 | Pete Bentley, Brian Lam, Warwick Pearmund, Larry Cao, CFA, Clare Witts | Video: 1 hr 3 min.
Does ESG Affect Fundamentals?
ESG investing market has shown significant growth over the past decade, and it continues to grow rapidly. It has been proved that systematic analysis of ESG incidents in addition to using traditional ESG scores improves portfolio's returns.
11 December 2020 | Who's Good: Maxim Nam
WEBINAR: Innovation in Islamic Banking
To compete with the conventional players, Islamic financial institutions must provide a unique and an attractive proposition to consumers and investors. They also have to navigate around the additional compliance responsibilities with Shariah requirements.
21 October 2020 | CFA Society Bangladesh, CFA Society Indonesia, CFA Society Malaysia, CFA Society Pakistan, CFA Institute | Video: 1 hr 38 min.
The Belt and Road Initiative in ASEAN
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is enhancing development prospects and creating new business opportunities in ASEAN, one of the world’s most dynamic regions. A research project by HKUST IEMS highlighting Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines.
29 March 2021 | HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS): Albert Park, Angela Tritto, Dini Sejko
Read Report >
WEBINAR: Green, Social, and Sustainability Bonds
The third webinar in the series "ESG in Credit", presented by CFA Institute and Fitch Ratings, addresses the market outlook for the green, social, and sustainability bonds, the opportunities and challenges for investors, how best to avoid “greenwashing”, how to balance credit risk and impact considerations, and regulatory developments.
2 March 2021 | Mary Leung, CFA, Mervyn Tang, CFA, Kenneth Hui, Giorgio Valente, Sean Kidney | Video: 1 hr 31 min.
WEBINAR: The Future Trends of Impact Investing in Asia
The goal of impact investing is to generate financial returns alongside measurable and positive social and environmental impact. Such investments provide capital funding to address the world’s most pressing challenges in sectors such as sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and affordable and accessible basic services, including housing, healthcare, and education.
22 February 2021 | Maud Savary-Mornet, Ronie Mak, Dina Pons, Pierrick Balmain, CFA, Piotr Zembrowski, CFA | Video: 1 hr 17 min.
About the Author(s)
Director: Scott Lee
Content manager, Editor: Piotr Zembrowski, CFA
Coordinator: Natalie Yiu