IMF Calls Fund Managers Global Risk

Fund management companies that invest billions of pounds of savers’ money pose a threat to global financial stability and regulators should police them more closely, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Delegating day-to-day investment decisions to large asset managers, as pension funds and many individual savers do, “introduces fundamental incentive problems between end investors and fund managers, which can induce destabilising behaviour and amplify shocks,” the Washington-based organisation says.

Asset management has so far largely escaped the more intrusive regulatory regime introduced for banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

But in a chapter from its twice-yearly Global Financial Stability Review (GFSR), released on Wednesday in advance of its spring meetings next week, the IMF identifies fund managers as a key risk – even those offering “plain vanilla” products rather than exotic investments such as hedge funds.

It believes that “herding” behaviour – as fund managers charge into the same asset classes simultaneously in order to hit their performance targets – is “prevalent and increasing” – particularly in emerging market assets.

via The Guardian

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza