Procyclical assets tend to rise in value when the economy is expanding and fall with the advent of a recession. Countercyclical assets are instead negatively correlated with the state of the economy. Despite the use of optimization methods, hedging, and ad hoc rebalancing techniques most...

Investors seek to hedge against interest rate risk by taking long or short positions on bonds ofdifferent maturities. We study changes in risk taking behavior in a low interest rateenvironment by estimating a market stochastic discount factor that is non-linear and thereforeconsistent with the...

Financial innovation in recent decades has expanded portfolio choice. We investigate how greater choice affects investors' savings and asset returns. We establish a choice channel by which greater portfolio choice increases investors' savings --- by enabling them to earn the aggregate risk...

The purpose of this case is to provide an introduction to fixed income portfolio management. In addition, the case describes the story of Bill Gross and the founding of PIMCO.Bill Gross continues to work the same schedule since joining PIMCO in 1970; a rigorous and structured workday that begins at...

Three concepts: stochastic discount factors, multi-beta pricing and mean-variance efficiency, are at the core of modern empirical asset pricing. This chapter reviews these paradigms and the relations among them, concentrating on conditional asset-pricing models where lagged variables serve as...

We present comprehensive evidence in support of giving liquidity equal standing to size, value/growth, and momentum as investment styles, as defined by Sharpe (1992). First, we show that financial market liquidity, as identified by stock turnover, is an economically significant indicator of...

In this paper, the authors construct a pipeline to benchmark Hierarchical Risk Parity (HRP) relative to Equal Risk Contribution (ERC) as examples of diversification strategies allocating to liquid multi-asset futures markets with dynamic leverage ("volatility target"). The authors use...

The belief that excess returns can be achieved by correctly timing changes in yields and/or yield spreads motivates active bond portfolio management strategies. Given the rich literature linking yield spread patterns to both the business cycle and changes in short-term interest rates, we...

We develop a two-layer asset pricing framework to analyze the fragility of the corporate bond market. In the model, households allocate wealth to institutional investors such as mutual funds and insurance companies. Institutional investors then allocate funds to specific assets. Equilibrium...