Are fund management firms a corps de ballet or a bunch of prima donnas?
One common claim from a number of fund management firms is that they have a coherent house view on the world economy and markets. One would expect that this would translate to some positive correlation between their outperformance in different asset classes. For instance a correct view on interest rate movement should see both outperformances in the equity and fixed income portfolios, ceteris paribus. This talk presents the result of a study to measure whether there is evidence for this in Australia. Les Balzer Beware the Ides (minus ten) of April — Which Aussie equities benchmark for you? The ASX is restructuring its indices for implementation in April 2000. The All Ordinaries Index has been deliberately redesigned to be inappropriate as a benchmark for institutional fund managers. For example, do you want to be one of the bunnies with an anachronistic All Ords benchmark chasing your share of 100% of Comalco when only 27% is not locked up in RIO’s hands? Michael Barker Some Thoughts
