by Apra Sharma
- 500 Startup’s innovation director, global ambassador and mentor for Vital Voices, multi-lingual and Argentine tango dancer, Vera Futorjanski, also shakes a leg with almost 40% of world nations as global investor and believer of better returns from investing in emerging markets with those having gender inclusive culture, allocating about 26% of investments in at least one female founder company relying on the research which proves such start-ups outperforming by 63% than those with exclusive male teams. However, a shocking truth as per TechCrunch is, only 2% of US VC dollars go to women led start-ups. Vera Futorjanski encourages more women to tap into VC space.
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2019/04/18/500-startups-how-diversity-drives-deals/
- Investing icon & BRK.A controller since 1964, having more than $100 billion annually invested in factor focused products, Warren Buffett, have created immense value for shareholders even in high volatility environment due to implied leverage. Analysis suggest that BRK.A’s positive exposure to value, size, low volatility & quality factors and negative exposure to growth and dividend yield have consistently outperformed S&P 500 clearly demonstrating his unprecedented skills in selecting factors, constructing a multi factor portfolio and adapting the factor mix overtime.
- There are now more than 70 times as many indexes as there are stocks globally, investors new preferred destination, ‘indexed annuities’ sales for 2018 rose 27% YoY to a record of $69.6 billion as per LIMRA. However, investors are reminded of three important factors, first, they track rules based trading strategies designed to manage asset class exposure as means of maintaining a set volatility target, second, performance is often calculated net of servicing cost & on an excess return basis and lastly, live & simulated returns may be conflated in annuity illustrations and marketing material, for which NAIC Working Group has proposed doubling from 10 to 20 years as the minimum amount of time an index or its constituents must exist for it to be used in annuity illustrations and GIPS recommends performance be provided to clients, prospects or consultants who have sufficient experience and knowledge.
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2019/04/03/indexed-annuities-the-exotic-side-of-indexing/