Valentina M. Glaviano was hired as director of distribution strategy, and Christopher McCool was appointed to vice president, for Altegris’ sales and consulting team.
Glaviano, a Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA), has 25 years of experience in distribution strategy
and management, business development, marketing and product development. She is
experienced in foreseeing evolving trends in investor and adviser needs, as
well as setting product, market and sales strategy to capitalize on those
trends. Her background includes deep experience with a range of investment
products—exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded notes (ETN)s, structured
products, collective trusts, separate accounts, mutual funds and variable
insurance products—as well as alternatives.
Most recently, Glaviano was managing director, head
of ETF and trade-able funds distribution for Guggenheim Investments. Earlier in
her career, she held sales and management positions with iShares-Barclays
Global Investors, Lazard Asset Management, Bankers Trust and Western Capital
Financial Group.
McCool, vice president, New England regional director,
was most recently director of sales with Bennett Group Financial Services in
Boston, where he was responsible for the successful launch of a new series of
mutual funds. Before that, he held positions with Eaton Vance Distributors and
Fidelity Investments.
“We welcome the addition of Valentina Glaviano
and Christopher McCool to our team of alternative investment specialized
consultants and know they will be integral to our continued growth,” said Dick
Pfister, global head of sales and consulting for Altegris. “We’re just as
rigorous in finding individuals with an abundance of passion and talent as we
are in finding the best alternative investment managers for our mutual funds
and hedge funds.”
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The
majority of investors view tail-risk management as an important part of their
investment plans, but barriers remain for adopting risk-mitigation strategies.
Since the financial crisis, investors have started to
rethink tail-risk mitigation strategies, Niall O’Leary, head of EMEA portfolio
strategy for State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), said during a webinar. Tail
risk is an extreme shock to financial markets that shows up as infrequent
observations in the far left tail of a return distribution. It is technically
defined as an investment that moves more than three standard deviations from
the mean of a normal distribution of investment returns.
Investors are not entirely confident they are protected from
the next tail-risk event, O’Leary said, adding that research from the Economist
Intelligence Unit on behalf of SSgA shows institutional investors think they
almost always underestimate the frequency and severity of tail risk.
According to the research, 71% of respondents think it is
likely or highly likely that a significant tail risk will occur in the next
year. The Eurozone crisis, prospect of recession and the slowdown in China are
prominent concerns. With tail risk, however, O’Leary said the unexpected events
are the ones with the most potential to cause damage.
Research indicates significant geographical differences
between institutional investors’ views of the next tail-risk events. U.S.
investors predict the next event will be the global economy falling into
recession (48%); the Eurozone breaking up (37%); Europe sinking back into
recession (28%); Greece exiting the Euro (25%); and the U.S. slipping back into
recession (23%). European investors think the next tail risk will be Europe
slipping back into recession (40%); Greece exiting the Euro (32%); the Eurozone
breaking up (30%); the global economy falling into recession (29%); and major
bank insolvency (22%).
(Cont...)
According to the survey, investors have several strategies
in place to protect against tail-risk events. “A number of approaches have
fallen somewhat out of favor [after the crisis],” O’Leary added. Before the
crisis, 81.4% of investors diversified across traditional asset classes to
mitigate tail risk. Now, that number has fallen to 75.7%. Conversely, investors
have increased their usage of alternative allocations such as property and
commodities (57.5% before the crisis, versus 65.1% now).
Survey respondents noted the following as effective hedges
against tail risk (ranked most to least effective): diversification across
traditional asset classes, risk-budgeting techniques, managed volatility equity
strategies, direct hedging-buying puts/straight guarantee, other alternative
allocation (e.g., property, commodities), managed futures/CTA allocation,
single strategy hedge fund allocation and fund of hedge fund allocation.
“Investors are concerned about tail risk … but their take-up
has been slow,” O’Leary said. Survey respondents noted the following barriers
in allocating to their tail-risk protection strategy: liquidity of underlying
instruments (64%); regulatory adherence/understanding (54%); risk aversion
(49%); transparency of underlying instruments (46%); fees/cost (42%);
understanding the investment returns/persistency of returns (33%); and lack of
general understanding of new asset classes (28%).
Despite challenges, things are looking up after the crisis:
73% say they believe that because of changes in their strategic asset
allocation, they are better prepared for the next major tail-risk event than
they were before the crisis.
“The vast majority of investors … feel that now, despite
what they’ve experienced in recent years, they are better protected against
downside risk going forward,” O’Leary said.