Deutsche Bank researchers address four questions in this study of responsible investments: How are these investments different from more conventional forms of investment? What products are available? Do sustainable investments offer lower returns? How will the market for sustainable investments evolve?
In addition to having an external mission, many family foundations create an internal one specifying how the foundation will function in family-building, education and the transfer of family values from one generation to the next. Foundation Source offers concrete examples of how some families are using their foundations to make a difference within...
The new health care reform legislation adds a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for many charitable donors starting in January 2013, while not allowing charitable deductions to be used to offset the tax. This article from Hemenway & Barnes explains how an interest-free loan to a charity can provide the same tax benefits as a charitable deduc...
While the merits of investing in convertible securities have been exhibited over time, the market is particularly compelling today. Convertibles offer much better risk/reward characteristics than equities, with stronger appreciation over the intermediate and long term but at meaningfully lower levels of risk and volatility.
The authors offer insight into how to minimize the down side and maximize recovery in failed investments by providing an initial framework to ensure the right alternatives are identified and evaluated and the most appropriate courses of action are selected.
As states have struggled with the fall-off in tax revenues from the financial crisis and ensuing recession, they have experienced very difficult budgeting processes. Despite these difficulties, almost all the states began the 2011 fiscal year with improving budgets.
To realize the social benefits their donors seek, foundations must clearly define their missions, create spend policies that correspond with those missions and set investment strategies that suit those policies.
In the first of a two-part series, the author defines the various types of investment styles and strategies of long/short equity managers, as well as explores their portfolio construction characteristics and techniques.
Investment innovation and rigorous discipline; dynamic, seamless planning; and a different quality of client-advisor engagement will be key to the achievement of long-term objectives for wealth accumulation, protection, spending and transfer as well as to peace of mind.
While oil prices are likely to be range-bound across the next few years, natural gas prices are establishing new, higher support levels after experiencing multi-year lows. Natural gas prices are likely to get a boost from politics as well as the weather and speculation.
In the post-Madoff era, the foundation and non-profit sector continues to struggle with how to invest philanthropic assets most appropriately and how to ensure that boards and staff are managing investments prudently.
Heritage Finance & Trust Company, Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in 1986 in Switzerland as a single family office providing financial advisory and portfolio management services. Over time, Heritage has evolved into a multifamily, multi-client office as it has seen demand for its services increase from an extended circle of family members and thei...
This paper examines the gap between the theory of portfolio construction and its practice. In particular, it analyzes some of the problems in the application of portfolio optimization techniques to individual investors and identifies ways to compensate for the theory's shortcomings.
In this issue of Eton’s Investment Outlook, the firm describes how Modern Portfolio Theory has ruled the financial seas for the past 60 years, its shortcomings, and why they view goals-based investing as a better framework.
The goals-based investing framework utilizes Abraham Maslow's “hierarchy of needs” approach by defining, quantifying and prioritizing financial goals across multiple family generations. The brilliance of this process is that it recognizes something very fundamental about our financial behavior: We assign different levels of priority to different go...