Spotlight
August 2011
Sector Corner: Bank Stocks
Steve Wachtel CFA , Senior Analyst - The performance of bank stocks over the last year has been nothing short of abysmal. As of 8/3/11, The BKX (The KBW Bank index) has declined 14.37% year-to-date and dropped 9.71% over 12 months compared to increases of 0.21% and 12.53% for the S&P 500 over the same time periods...
July 2011
Sector Corner: Healthcare
Florian Eitner, CFA, Associate Portfolio Manager - The Health Care sector has seen renewed interest during the second quarter of 2011 in light of fears over a slowdown in global growth and ongoing concerns over European sovereign debt. Health Care outperformed the S&P 500 by 768bps in the quarter and has had the best performance of all the sectors...
July 2010
SSI Outright Convertibles: The Opportunity Persists
Ravi Malik, CFA, Portfolio Manager, Principal - Outright Convertibles began recovering in December 2008 followed by above trend performance in 2009 as spreads and cheapness reverted to the mean. At their cheapest level in November 2008, the Convertibles asset class presented a generational opportunity, with a theoretical cheapness of over 6% on top of the widest credit spreads for high yield on record, and an exceptionally cheap equity market...
July 2010
From Equities to Convertibles
A bond that can be exchanged for a predetermined amount of the company’s equity. Essentially, a convertible has a valueadded component built into it– a stock option hidden inside. Like any other corporate bond, convertibles promise to repay principal and pay a fixed return...
February 2010
Quantitative Equity Management and the Great Recession: Pitfalls and Opportunities
White Paper by George Douglas, CFA, CIO - The financial crisis of 2008, subsequent recession, and the onset of economic recovery in 2009 presented unique challenges to quantitatively-oriented equity portfolio managers. Most importantly, as events unfolded, substantial changes to the weightings of underlying variables in quantitative equity ranking models were necessary...