Inquire Europe Conference
When the leading minds in quantitative asset management get together for two days, it is usually for the Inquire Europe conference. This year’s autumn seminar at Grand Hotel Karel V in Utrecht focused on ETFs, indexing and market impact.
Ultramarin
The excellent line of speakers included Campbell Harvey, Laura Starks, Raman Uppal and Dimitri Vayanos, among others. They provided valuable insights into the impact of the passive investing trend, rebalancing activities of institutional investors and the measurement of alpha. Ultramarin has been supporting the organisation for many years. On this occasion, Dr. Lisa Herr (Quoniam Asset Management), Dr. Andreas Sauer, Dr. Maximilian Sauer (both ansa capital management GmbH), Sven Thießen (Deka Investment) and our Chairman of the Board, Peter Oertmann (who took the selfie), engaged in lively discussions at the round table.
- The 35th Anniversary Autumn Seminar opened with a keynote by Dimitri Vayanos, who discussed how flows into passive funds tend to disproportionately raise the stock prices of the largest firms, particularly those favored by noise traders.
- Riccardo Sabbatucci and Campbell Harvey presented highly engaging and interactive sessions, contributing fresh perspectives and stimulating debate.
- A second keynote was delivered by Laura Starks, whose presentation explored active ETFs, focusing on the emerging innovation of less transparent active active ETFs.
- Other engaging presentations included Ziwei Z. on the influence of active managers on the pricing of underlying assets within ETFs, and Adam Reed on Cross-ETF Arbitrage.
- The final day began with a presentation by Russ Wermers concerning bond valuation dispersion and ETF creation.
- This was followed by Tiang Ye’s research, which offered insights into passive demand and active supply dynamics.
- Following the annual INQUIRE Europe business meeting, Raman Uppal concluded the seminar with a presentation questioning whether active fund management adds value for shortsale-constrained investors.
- Participants were offered an optional joint program with Netspar on Navigating the Pension Reform after the seminar.
- The Netspar session featured two presentations: Bas Werker shared insights into the pension reform occurring in The Netherlands.
- Joost Driessen then discussed the application of scenario sets within the context of the evolving pension reform.