“I strongly recommend Pascal Blanqué’s book.”
--John Plender, Financial Times
After the warm reception of Essays in Positive Investment Management, the author has published a second, expanded edition. It contains, in particular, discussion of the notion of liquidity as the missing element in modern portfolio theory, together with changes in macro-financial regime as key factors for investment strategies. Savings glut, QE glut, and secular stagnation are lasting features that bring fresh challenges.
Few people have better insight into investment management than Pascal Blanqué. In this important and timely book, Blanqué makes a powerful claim for positive investment to avoid fanciful illusions. Blanqué argues that the investment world contains many fairytale elements, and shows that confrontation with reality leaves its mark on the theoretical sacred cows of established beliefs and truths.
These essays include an objective assessment of the discipline’s sacred cows; the effective dynamic of the financial markets concerning value, liquidity, and momentum; anticipation of the return on financial assets; and the reality of long-term investment. Blanqué demonstrates the importance of better understanding the psychological referential of the subject and of those individuals who interact within this universe of anticipation and imagination. Blanqué describes the role of time, duration, memory, and forgetfulness.
These essays explore ways to renew traditional approaches (allocation, indices, inefficiencies that can be exploited, and other methods). There has never been such a need for sound management to bridge the gap between abundant savings and unsatisfied investment requirements. We need new ways to channel investment management for the good. We need more investment science, not less.
Pascal Blanqué is deputy CEO, chief investment officer, and head of institutional business for a major international asset management company. He formerly served as chief economist and head of research of a large international banking group. His work focuses on monetary issues, the functioning of financial markets and the philosophical foundations of economics. His books include Money, Memory, and Asset Prices, The Social Economy of Freedom, and Philosophy in Economics. He was awarded the European CIO of the Year 2013 by Funds Magazine. Born in 1964, Pascal Blanqué graduated from France’s Ecole Normale Supérieure and Paris Institut d’Études Politiques before earning a Ph.D in finance from the University of Paris Dauphine.
