Last year I made a resolution to start a blog on things that interested me, now that blog is nearly a year old, I’m really happy (and amazed) to report the stats from the last 12 months – over 4,000 unique page views from 30 separate entries, with 8 entries receiving over 100 views. The blog has been viewed from more than 80 different countries. Here are the most read posts from the last year :
1. What does the Highway code say about investment strategy?
Describing the principles behind volatility-controlled (also called risk-controlled) approaches to investing in equities through the use of a driving analogy, this was by far and away the most popular blog entry I wrote. I have to thank Dawid Konotey-Ahulu for coming up with the driving analogy in the first place, cheers Dawid!
2. Why risk control can reduce the cost of downside protection by 80%
The punchy headline must have pulled in the viewers from this blog entry from back in March 2013, but I’m a big fan of using volatility control plus put options as a long-term approach to equity investment. At Redington we implemented this for a UK pension fund in July 2013, with plenty more set to follow next year.
3. Inflation risk – mind the cap (and floor)
Now this was one of my geekier posts but one of huge relevance to UK DB pension funds. We’ve spent a lot of time at Redington over the last couple of years making sure that our clients receive the best possible advice on hedging the embedded inflation caps and floors in their liabilities. Its a complex area but one where a bit of financial modelling knowledge can have real benefits for trustees and schemes.
Finally, massive thanks to Rob Gardner for giving me the impetus and support to write on the pensions topics that interested me!