Pimco Quants Say Too Many Investors Are Getting Hedges Wrong

  • Important to take ‘currency-by-currency’ approach: Pimco says
  • Aussie moves in line with riskier assets, yen moves inversely
Photographer: John Taggart/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Pacific Investment Management Co. says one-size-fits-all hedging tactics are undermining pension returns.

Many institutional investors choose uniform currency protection for each asset class, and that means they miss out on the opportunity to benefit from the way some exchange rates are correlated with moves in riskier assets, says Pimco, which oversees $1.5 trillion of assets. So Australian-based investors fail to reap the full benefits from their dollar’s tendency to strengthen when stock markets rise and their Japanese counterparts aren’t getting the most from the yen’s habit of climbing when equities fall.