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Global Tactical Asset Allocation
Global Tactical Asset Allocation, or GTAA, is a top-down investment strategy that attempts to exploit short-term mis-pricings among a global set of assets. The strategy focuses on general movements in the market rather than on performance of individual securities.What is Global tactical asset allocation? by Ralph Frank, Mercer (12 April 2007) Hedge funds and asset allocation GTAA is believed to be derived from, and share some characteristics of, global macro |
Investment
Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditures and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed cash flow stream. In finance, the purpose of investing is to generate a Return (finance), return on the invested asset. The return may consist of a capital gain (profit) or loss, realised if the investment is sold, unrealised capital appreciation (or depreciation) if yet unsold. It may also consist of periodic income such as dividends, interest, or rental income. The return may also inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stock
Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets (after discharge of all Seniority (financial), senior claims such as secured and unsecured debt), or Voting interest, voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the number of like shares each stockholder owns. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classes of stock may be issued, for example, without voting rights, with enhanced voting rights, or with a certain priority to receive profits or liquidation proceeds before or after other classes of Shareholder, shareholders. Stock can be bought and sold over-the-counter (finance), privately or on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Liquidity
In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a market's feature whereby an individual or firm can quickly purchase or sell an asset without causing a drastic change in the asset's price. Liquidity involves the trade-off between the price at which an asset can be sold, and how quickly it can be sold. In a liquid market, the trade-off is mild: one can sell quickly without having to accept a significantly lower price. In a relatively illiquid market, an asset must be discounted in order to sell quickly. A liquid asset is an asset which can be converted into cash within a relatively short period of time, or cash itself, which can be considered the most liquid asset because it can be exchanged for goods and services instantly at face value. Overview A liquid asset has some or all of the following features: it can be sold rapidly, with minimal loss of value, anytime within market hours. The essential characteristic of a liquid market is that there are always ready and wil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derivative (finance)
In finance, a derivative is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The derivative can take various forms, depending on the transaction, but every derivative has the following four elements: # an item (the "underlier") that can or must be bought or sold, # a future act which must occur (such as a sale or purchase of the underlier), # a price at which the future transaction must take place, and # a future date by which the act (such as a purchase or sale) must take place. A derivative's value depends on the performance of the underlier, which can be a commodity (for example, corn or oil), a financial instrument (e.g. a stock or a bond), price index, a price index, a currency, or an interest rate. Derivatives can be used to insure against price movements (Hedge (finance)#Etymology, hedging), increase exposure to price movements for speculation, or get access to otherwise hard-to-trade assets or markets. Most derivatives are price guarantees. But some are based on an event or p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpha (investment)
Alpha is a measure of the active return on an investment, the performance of that investment compared with a suitable stock market index, market index. An alpha of 1% means the investment's return on investment over a selected period of time was 1% better than the market during that same period; a negative alpha means the investment underperformed the market. Alpha, along with Beta (finance), beta, is one of two key coefficients in the capital asset pricing model used in modern portfolio theory and is closely related to other important quantities such as Standard deviation#Finance, standard deviation, R-squared and the Sharpe ratio#Use in finance, Sharpe ratio. In modern financial markets, where index funds are widely available for purchase, alpha is commonly used to judge the performance of mutual funds and similar investments. As these funds include various fees normally expressed in percent terms, the fund has to maintain an alpha greater than its fees in order to provide posi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Timing
Market timing is the strategy of making buying or selling decisions of financial assets (often stocks) by attempting to predict future market price movements (market trends). The prediction may be based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis. This is an investment strategy based on the outlook for an aggregate market rather than for a particular financial asset. The efficient-market hypothesis is an assumption that asset prices reflect all available information, meaning that it is theoretically impossible to systematically "beat the market." Approaches Market timing can cause poor performance. After fees, the average "trend follower" does not show skills or abilities compared to benchmarks. "Trend Tracker" reported returns are distorted by survivor bias, selection bias, and fill bias. At the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, YiLi Chien, Senior Economist wrote about return-chasing behavior. The average equity mutual fund ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Capitalization
Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by the number of common shares outstanding. Description Market capitalization is sometimes used to rank the size of companies. It measures only the equity component of a company's capital structure, and does not reflect management's decision as to how much debt (or leverage) is used to finance the firm. A more comprehensive measure of a firm's size is enterprise value (EV), which gives effect to outstanding debt, preferred stock, and other factors. For insurance firms, a value called the embedded value (EV) has been used. It is also used in ranking the relative size of stock exchanges, being a measure of the sum of the market capitalizations of all companies listed on each stock exchange. The total capitalization of stock markets or eco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short (finance)
In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common Long (finance), long Position (finance), position, where the investor will profit if the market value of the asset rises. An investor that sells an asset short is, as to that asset, a short seller. There are a number of ways of achieving a short position. The most basic is physical selling short or short-selling, by which the short seller Securities lending, borrows an asset (often a security (finance), security such as a share (finance), share of stock or a bond (finance), bond) and sells it. The short seller must later buy the same amount of the asset to return it to the lender. If the market price of the asset has fallen in the meantime, the short seller will have made a profit equal to the difference in price. Conversely, if the price has risen then the short seller will bear a loss. The short seller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long (finance)
In finance, a long position in a financial instrument means the holder of the position owns a positive amount of the instrument. The holder of the position has the expectation that the financial instrument will increase in value. This is known as a bullish position. The term "long position" is often used in context of buying options contracts. Ownership When an investor holds a long position in a stock they are buying a share of ownership in a company. Depending on the type of Stock purchased this can entitle the shareholder to voting rights at shareholder meetings or dividend payments. Security In terms of a security, such as a stock or a bond, or equivalently ''to be long'' in a security, means the holder of the position owns the security, on the expectation that the security will increase in value, and will profit if the price of the security goes up. ''Going long'' a security is the more conventional practice of investing. Future Going long in a future means th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portfolio (finance)
In finance, a portfolio is a collection of investments. Definition The term "portfolio" refers to any combination of financial assets such as stocks, bonds and cash. Portfolios may be held by individual investors or managed by financial professionals, hedge funds, banks and other financial institutions. It is a generally accepted principle that a portfolio is designed according to the investor's risk tolerance, time frame and investment objectives. The monetary value of each asset may influence the risk/reward ratio of the portfolio. When determining asset allocation, the aim is to maximise the expected return and minimise the risk. This is an example of a multi-objective optimization problem: many efficient solutions are available and the preferred solution must be selected by considering a tradeoff between risk and return. In particular, a portfolio A is dominated by another portfolio A' if A' has a greater expected gain and a lesser risk than A. If no portfolio dominates A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercer (consulting Firm)
Mercer is an American consulting firm founded in 1945. It is one of the four operating subsidiaries of global professional services firm Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC). Mercer is headquartered in New York City with offices in 43 countries and operations in 130 countries. The company primarily provides human resources and financial services consulting services to its clients. Mercer has several distinct lines of business, namely: health and benefits, investments and retirement, workforce and careers, and M&A advisory services. It is the world's largest investment advisory with over US$300 billion outsourced assets under management and US$16 trillion under advisement in total. History Foundation and early years (1937–1959) William Manson Mercer founded William M. Mercer, Limited in Vancouver, Canada in 1945. It was acquired by Marsh McLennan and merged into their employee benefits department in 1959. Post acquisition growth (1959–2002) Mercer Consulting Group In 1975, Marsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asset Allocation
Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets. Description Many financial experts argue that asset allocation is an important factor in determining returns for an investment portfolio. Asset allocation is based on the principle that different assets perform differently in different market and economic conditions. A fundamental justification for asset allocation is the notion that different asset classes offer returns that are not perfectly correlated, hence diversification reduces the overall risk in terms of the variability of returns for a given level of expected return. Asset diversification has been described as "the only f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
