Description: The Society of Actuaries' Committee on Finance Research (CFR) is seeking proposals for research projects that will produce information, data, theoretical models and/or empirical tools useful to actuaries practicing in investment and other finance-related areas.

Description: The Actuarial Research Clearing House (ARCH) is an informal communication providing current actuarial research to friends and members of the actuarial community. View the second issue for 2024.

Description: When formulating a personal investment strategy, the application of a disciplined methodology can lead to more rational decision making by the investor. From The Actuary Magazine, April/May 2005

Description: Our previous article, “Introduction of Cashflow Matching Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) Framework,” introduced the concept and included a real-world case study that developed a liability-driven investment strategy for a single line of business (LOB) for a life insurer. This article expands the framework and the case study from a single LOB to simultaneously optimize asset allocation across multiple LOBs. It discusses how this multi-line SAA framework can enable an insurance company to efficiently tag its asset holdings to each LOB, identify opportunities in the public and private asset markets to enhance risk-adjusted returns, and develop a deeper understanding of the trade-off between the degree of cashflow matching and risk-adjusted returns across LOBs.

Description: This article takes a look at how defined benefit (DB) pension plan financials ended the third quarter of 2023 on a solid footing, improving the capacity to take meaningful de-risking actions; as DB plans look to de-risk at reasonable costs, they may find it beneficial to consider a broad range of investment options; and completing a core bond allocation with private credit and income-oriented alternative strategies can help achieve important savings over other frequently pursued de-risking approaches, without materially increasing the funded status volatility or downside risk

Description: Life insurers have been allocating to alternative investments (private credits, real assets, private equities) in the past decades, searching for higher yields. Examine the macro trend in insurer's investment allocation, definitions of alternative investments, benefits of investing in them as well as consideration of regulatory complications involved. Come learn about alternative asset classes, best practice in ALM and regulatory trends in insurance asset management.

Description: There will be inflection points in the value of an instrument when interest rates change. These inflection points could materially impact the approximation of value change using ALM metrics. In this part of the seven-part series, I will highlight: • How to identify the inflection points; • the range of rate changes where ALM metrics may be relied upon i.e., the “validity” range, outside of which recalculation of the ALM metrics is required and the potential that one needs to rebalance the portfolio; • a technique to improve on the approximation of value change beyond the validity range; and • a technique to convert non-linear change on the yield curve to be used with duration and convexity.

Description: This report updates the Canadian Mortality Data through 2021 in the Human Mortality Database and Canadian Human Mortality Database, including methodology, data sources, and internal consistency checks.

Description: Join us for an Economic Outlook Panel that will explore topics like "what are markets saying about likelihood and severity or a recession?" and "how is inflation impacting investment decisions?" Our investment experts speaking at this panel have backgrounds in asset management, insurance and pensions and plan to speak on current macroeconomic trends and their impact on the market. Audience members will have the opportunity to participate and ask question during this live webcast. Prepare for a lively conversation with a panel focused on impacts of our economic environment.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Committee on Finance Research is pleased to make available a research report that develops a framework for applying deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques to optimal dynamic strategic asset allocation for Liability Driven Investment (LDI).