22/06/2017
Aspect Capital celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The firm’s CEO Anthony Todd reckons that investors have had it too easy for the past 20 years, when a straightforward 60% equities, 40% bonds, portfolio – and indeed a risk parity approach that might have applied substantial leverage to the bond sleeve – generated remarkable returns. “Now, with compressed yields and potentially stretched equity valuations, there is deep concern about where to find steady returns of 4-6% above cash over the next cycle. That’s where quantitative multi-strategy approaches play a role,” he argues.
Aspect was founded in 1997, though its principals had been among the founding fathers of Europe’s CTA industry in the 1980s, and for many years the firm only did medium term trend-following, via its flagship Aspect Diversified programme, albeit with a growing number of “modulating factors” which now form a new product. “This strategy provides portfolio diversification, risk mitigation, and crisis risk offsets,” says Todd.
Please read full article here.