Successful fixed income investing requires placing risk analysis at the heart of portfolio management

The use of universal stock futures (futures on single stocks) as a risk management tool has been on the increase since their launch in 2001. This simple product can be used in some basic but very effective hedging techniques. In their book, Single Stock Futures: A Trader’s Guide, from which an edited extract follows, Patrick Young and Charles Sidey explore how wealth managers can effectively implement such techniques and discuss the advantages of risk transfer and central counterparty (CCP) in the context of the new undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (Ucits) directives.

Views differ over the appeal of bonds in a market of changing interest rates, writes Simon Hildrey

Open architecture is viewed as a way to increase competitiveness, retain clients and attract new accounts. However, anything less than a genuine choice of products, and any indicator of it being solely for the benefit of the banks themselves, will result in a customer exodus. Paula Garrido reports