Investors have a tendency to downplay interest rate sensitivity as a factor influencing equity products, with the assumption being that its effect must be negligible at most. One of a handful of exceptions to that assumption, however, is concern over the rate sensitivity of low volatility “smart beta” funds.
This white paper looks at the period of the increased volatility in the financial markets leading up to and on November 8th and provides valuable insights into internal workings of risk parity strategies during periods of heightened volatility.
In the winter of 2015, an almost unheard of situation happened. A mutual fund, normally required to guarantee daily liquidity, blocked its clients from withdrawing money. The Third Ave Focused Credit Fund (TFCIX), citing losses and a lack of liquidity in the high yield bond market, put some of its assets into a trust to be sold over time.
A July 20th WSJ article featured Quantedge Capital, a quantitative global macro hedge fund manager that gained 40% after fees year-to-date through June. We provide a quantitative insight into potential sources of such performance.
We illustrate how such an event such as “Brexit” could be (a) used as a litmus test to reconcile TDF information with performance results; and (b) alert to suitability of the selected investment option.
Risk parity strategies hold the promise of smooth sailing through periods of market turbulence, offering consistent performance via risk diversification. However, during Brexit the losses they experienced were very high by historical standards as they came very close to exceeding, or exceeded, the 95% worst outcome as estimated by the historical VaR.
