What Happened to Quant (Equity)?

The US is undergoing a largescale shift in the way it approaches its residential real estate needs. Accelerated by the events of the past year, more Americans are making the decision to move away from densely packed, urban multi-family apartment units in favour of more bedrooms, more living space and outdoor backyards of their own. In this episode of The CIO Agenda, Anthony Cazazian, Head of US Residential Real Estate at Man GPM, discusses why the low supply and high demand for single-family rental units stands to benefit the sector and how investors can better diversify their residential exposure with this uncorrelated return stream and inflation-resistant asset class.  Find the full transcript of this episode on Man Institute.

With the rise of systematic trading and machine learning-driven investment strategies, investors are moving towards faster, higher turnover strategies. For those strategies, the measurement of these costs is crucial and potentially can cause some strategies to become unprofitable if not properly considered. The easiest way to boost the alpha of a trading strategy is to reduce costs. But what is the best way to do so with multiple orders in the same direction? Emidio Sciulli joins Sandy Rattray on The CIO Agenda to discuss how investors can extract more alpha from their trading strategies.

Recent regulatory changes have opened the door even wider for foreign investors to access onshore Chinese markets. Access to China’s domestic capital markets continues to be relaxed while investors with a QFII license are well positioned to benefit from greater access, lower trading costs and further potential expansion of the permissible instruments. Does trading in Chinese financial and commodity markets provide attractive return and diversification characteristics for a systematic manager? And why are Chinese equities still such a minor element of most portfolios? Giuliana Bordigoni, Director of Specialist Strategies at Man AHL and Ori Ben-Akiva, Director of Portfolio Management at Man Numeric, join Sandy Rattray on The CIO Agenda to discuss the diversification opportunities for investors in Chinese markets.

Britain’s housing market is in crisis. Median property prices are 10 times higher than median incomes in the South East and over 30 times in parts of London. Demographic pressures and the rise in foreign investment in residential property have coincided with a significant reduction in government investment in social housing. For real asset investors, this offers an opportunity to deliver real impact for a local community through the development of new homes while also ensuring they achieve their return targets. Shamez Alibhai, Head of Community Housing and Portfolio Manager at Man GPM, joins Sandy Rattray and The CIO Agenda to discuss the socially responsible impact and alpha on offer from solving the UK’s housing shortage. Find the full transcript of this episode here: https://www.man.com/maninstitute/the-cio-agenda-podcast

Quant credit remains a relatively niche investment area compared to quant equity. The attraction of quant credit is clear. Fixed income is still dominated by large, slow-moving, buy-and-hold money and unlike equity markets it is not yet heavily trawled by quant managers. Consequently, it is a market rife with inefficiencies and quant strategies exist to harvest the opportunities that such inefficiencies throw off. Quantitative investment strategies are increasingly using the growing amount of data generated by the fixed income and credit markets to deliver uncorrelated returns and eliminate the human biases to which discretionary investors are susceptible. Paul Kamenski and Robert Lam, Co-Heads of Credit at Man Numeric, join Sandy Rattray and The CIO Agenda to discuss why a systematic approach to credit is moving from the niche to the mainstream and the opportunities for alpha on offer. Download the full white paper on quant credit here. You can also read the full transcript of the episode here.

The new year couldn’t come quickly enough for some quant strategies. A swathe of headlines pronounced 2020 a quantus annus horribilis for a host of reasons, from swashbuckling retail day traders to outdated historical trend models. As no stranger to quantitative investing ourselves, we investigate what really happened to quant in 2020 and whether 2021 may prove a change in fortunes.Ori Ben-Akiva, Director of Portfolio Management at Man Numeric, joins Sandy Rattray and The CIO Agenda to discuss the challenges quant (equity) strategies faced in 2020 and the factors that will drive their success. Important information

For years, investors have benefitted from the simplicity of the 60/40 portfolio. However, going forward, hedging historically expensive equities with historically expensive bonds may result in futility. Assumptions about bond/equity correlations and the Federal Reserve’s ability to control yields may also challenge investors. Peter van Dooijeweert, Managing Director of Multi-Asset Solutions, joins Sandy Rattray and The CIO Agenda to discuss the search for potential bond replacements and why an alternative solution may reside in giving up on that search entirely. Important information

As the successful rollouts of effective Covid-19 vaccines have rekindled investor optimism, emerging markets have seen a comeback in recent months. We believe that it is prudent to remain cautious on emerging markets for five reasons: overall debt burdens; Chinese credit impulse; deteriorating conditions across the largest developed markets; a lack of catalysts for EM currency appreciation versus the US dollar; and positioning. Lisa Chua, Portfolio Manager, join Sandy Rattray and The CIO Agenda to discuss what lies ahead for emerging-market debt. Important information

Launching April 2021, The CIO Agenda is about the challenges professional investors face. Hosted by Sandy Rattray, Chief Investment Officer at Man Group and co-inventor of the VIX Index, he'll be interviewing guests on how they'd approach a particular investment problem and where professional investors might find opportunities for alpha.