Institutional Investor (June 14)
“Companies and their stake holders are increasingly anxious to add more women to their boards, a process that can be fraught with controversy…. But for all the hand-wringing,” a recent study from the Wharton School found that “companies do not perform any better—or any worse—when they have women on their boards.” This is “the research diversity experts don’t want you to read.”
Tags: Anxious, Boards, Controversy, Diversity, Experts, Hand-wringing, Performance, Research, Stakeholders, Wharton, Women
Institutional Investor (April 6)
“PNC Capital Advisors is putting its large-cap mutual funds under a factor-based computer model.” Now that quant funds tend to outperform human stock pickers, at least in the large-cap space, the move seeks to reduce costs, improve performance and attract more investors. “Quantitative factor-based models” appear to “reduce human being’s tendency to make behavioral mistakes. Portfolio managers are prone to confirmation bias as human beings are rarely swayed by new information that goes against long-held beliefs.”
Tags: Confirmation bias, Costs, Investors, Large caps, Mutual funds, Performance, PNC, Portfolio managers, Quantitative, Stock pickers
Bloomberg (April 4)
“Now could be the time for foreign investors to return to Japanese equities, according to Goldman Sachs. Corporate governance reforms, a recovery in domestic demand and the strong performance of local stocks in U.S. dollar terms are all potential catalysts that may lure foreigners back.”
Tags: Catalysts, Demand, Equities, Foreign investors, Goldman Sachs, Governance, Japan, Performance, Recovery
Institutional Investor (January 9)
“Tiger-related funds are not celebrating the market’s 2016 surge.” While some “stock market investors have been whooping it up after the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index posted an unexpectedly strong 9.5 percent gain last year,” Tiger funds were left licking their wounds. Wrong-footed by the election of Donald Trump, many Tigers tumbled far into the red, undoing solid performance earlier in the year.
Tags: 2016, Election, Investors, Performance, S&P 500, Surge, Tiger funds, Trump, Wrong-footed
Financial Times (January 4)
Whether “Abenomics remains a relevant force…may depend heavily upon the performance of the Nikkei 225 Average over the next six weeks.” If the “huge dip that savaged the benchmark” last year during the same period can be avoided, many analysts believe “we may be looking at a market with enough foreign buying and other support to sustain the current bull run.”
Tags: Abenomics, Analysts, Benchmark, Bull run, Dip, Foreign buying, Market, Nikkei 225, Performance, Relevant force, Support
The Week (October 31)
Designed to foster communication and collaboration, open office layouts are having a negative impact on employee productivity and satisfaction. “Overheard conversations can result in a 5 percent to 10 percent decline in the performance of cognitive tasks…like reading, writing, and other forms of creative work. Noise can impair workers’ ability to recall information and do basic arithmetic. It also can decrease productivity by as much as 86 minutes per day.”
Tags: Collaboration, Communication, Employees, Impact, Noise, Performance, Productivity, Satisfaction
The Economist (March 12)
“Now after five decades, the end of Moore’s law is in sight.” This might not prove a bad thing as the quest for improvement will turn to more promising areas, such as the “deep learning” technology that recently beat Go legend Lee Sedol. “Huge performance gains can be achieved through new algorithms. Indeed, slowing progress in hardware will provide stronger incentives to develop cleverer software.”
Tags: Algorithms, Deep learning, Gains, Go, Hardware, Improvement, Moore’s Law, Performance, Progress, Promising, Software, Technology
Washington Post (March 9)
“Is the U.S. economy stronger than we think? Perhaps. A persisting puzzle about its recent performance is the stark contrast between growth of jobs (which has been unexpectedly robust) and the growth of the economy’s output (which has been unexpectedly weak).” It’s possible that economic output is being “consistently undercounted.”
Tags: Economy, Growth, Jobs, Performance, Puzzle, Robust. Output, U.S., Undercounted
Bloomberg (November 11)
“There are reasons to suspect that all the hand-wringing about China pulling down the rest of the world may be a tad overdone. Just as the country’s slump is producing obvious losers…it’s producing winners as well.” They “will help the world withstand a protracted period of sub-par performance by China,” much as the world did “when Japan’s economy downshifted dramatically in the 1990s.”
Tags: China, Economy, Hand-wringing, Japan, Losers, Performance, Slump, Winners, World
The Economist (July 18)
“There has always been an element of financial engineering about buy-backs. Can it really be good news if a firm feels it has nothing better to do with its money? An enthusiasm for buy-backs creates the sense that executives are more interested in short-term share-price performance than in the company’s long-term health.” According to some estimates, the number of available shares in U.S. stock markets has been reduced by approximately 6% since 2009 as a result of buy-backs, but the trend appears to be slowing.
Tags: Buy-backs, Enthusiasm, Executives, Financial engineering, Performance, Share price, Short term, U.S.
