Ahead of the curve: Are defensive strategies delivering?

Excess returns of defensive global equity manager composites during market downturns vs MSCI ACWI

Introducing ‘defensiveness’ to equity portfolios can take many forms. At the most explicit end of the spectrum, we can consider dialling down market exposure using derivative-based equity overlays – whether these are static protection programmes or more complex dynamically managed strategies which could even include some implicit volatility trading. At the more implicit end, promising reduced ‘downside capture’, we find a wide array of defensive long-only equity strategies.

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IPE covers a good variety of very current and relevant topics. It is good to read the high-level, independent and objective perspectives from pension funds in other European countries; many of them are dealing with the same issues as we are, so it is interesting to learn from their experiences, especially when they are ahead of where we are on the curve.

Markus Schaen , Senior Fund Manager, MN,
The Netherlands