Perspectives Blog

The Columbia Management Perspectives blog offers our insights on current market events and investment opportunities.

Searching for Big Foot

Columbia Management, Blog Author

By Anwiti Bahuguna, Senior Portfolio Manager Recent events in Europe have reignited the debate over the effectiveness of government policy interventions and on the question of what stimulates growth. Unfortunately, we can’t look to academia to provide convincing answers. Fierce debates on this topic have raged ever since the 1930s when John Maynard Keynes theorized Read More

Correlation and diversification

Columbia Management, Blog Author

As asset correlations change, so does their diversification effect. We believe effective diversification is achieved through a set of investments that will react to the same market differently (i.e., a lower correlation). But, as the graph below illustrates, correlations aren’t static — they change over time, moving both higher and lower. For the goal of mitigating Read More

Europe says “non” to austerity

Colin Moore, AIIMR, Chief Investment Officer

Current French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by the socialist candidate Francois Hollande in last Sunday’s presidential election. Sarkozy’s defeat follows the ouster of governments in the Netherlands and Greece among others, as voters appear to be rejecting the German-influenced austerity programs implemented across Europe. Earlier this year, we pointed out that we believed that Read More

Renewable energy: novelty value or shareholder value?

Columbia Management, Blog Author

By Christian Stadlinger, Senior Portfolio Manager Alternative and renewable energy have become modern buzzwords in the investment world that ring with excitement. While some technologies are well established and much debated (corn ethanol), others are booming (shale gas and oil), there is a recent class of energy companies with technologies that just a few years Read More

Dividend revival

Columbia Management, Blog Author

Recently there has been a revival of interest in dividend-paying stocks. Despite this renewed enthusiasm, the percentage of earnings being paid to shareholders in the form of dividends currently remains below 30% as companies continue to hoard cash in an uncertain global economy. An evolution in attitude among management teams may ultimately end with excess Read More

Sell in May and go away?

Columbia Management, Blog Author

By Beth Vanney, CFA, Portfolio Manager “Sell in May and go away” is a popular Wall Street adage referring to the belief that returns from October through April tend to be higher than returns from May through September. We thought it a timely topic to investigate — paying particular attention to the election year cycle. Read More