July 2026
03Jul

How Rational Is AI Investment Advice? Risk-Return Relevance in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Investments

By Nanying Lin, Oscar Gilbert & Tianxiang Chu Textbook finance theories indicate that investors demand risk premia from risky assets as compensation for risk and for hedging against future unfavorable economic states. We design a comprehensive study to examine whether investment advice generated by artificial intelligence (AI) reflects a coherent risk–return pattern in investment decision-making. We find that AI advises investors to increase stock investments when return increases and reduce stock allocations when stock volatility increases. However, AI ignores the...

July 3, 2026
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01Jul

Retirees Don’t Need to Fear a Lost Decade. They Need a Plan

We recently interviewed flat-fee financial advisor Adam Grossman for Morningstar’s “The Long View” podcast and asked him about his biggest worry for current retirees. The answer? The possibility of another “lost decade,” when stocks fail to generate positive returns over an extended period. The last time that happened was during the 2000s, when the bear market in tech stocks early in the decade was followed by another series of sharp losses during the global financial crisis. An event like that is particularly...

July 1, 2026
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June 2026
25Jun

Pension funds and insurers manage $100 trillion dollars — can they use it to help solve global problems?

Over the past century, finance has become increasingly disconnected from the physical world it depends on. Every day, trillions of dollars move through financial markets as stocks, bonds and derivatives. Much of that money never reaches the businesses, infrastructure and systems that power the real economy. The scale of this shift is striking. In 2024, around $149 trillion worth of shares were traded on global stock markets. Yet, companies raised only $741 billion in new capital through those same markets. So, for...

June 25, 2026
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25Jun

AI in pensions raises governance challenge for trustees: Cartwright

Artificial intelligence used across pension schemes is creating a governance challenge rather than a new regulatory risk, according to Cartwright Pension Trusts. Cartwright said trustees should focus on oversight, accountability and existing governance frameworks as AI becomes more widely used across scheme operations. It said trustees remain responsible for decisions and member outcomes, whether services are delivered by people or AI tools and should incorporate AI considerations into existing governance, risk management, supplier oversight and information security frameworks. According to Cartwright,...

June 25, 2026
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24Jun

Pension funds and insurers manage $100 trillion dollars — can they use it to help solve global problems?

Over the past century, finance has become increasingly disconnected from the physical world it depends on. Every day, trillions of dollars move through financial markets as stocks, bonds and derivatives. Much of that money never reaches the businesses, infrastructure and systems that power the real economy. The scale of this shift is striking. In 2024, around $149 trillion worth of shares were traded on global stock markets. Yet, companies raised only $741 billion in new capital through those same markets. So, for...

June 24, 2026
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22Jun

Making pensions more inclusive for LGBTQ+ members

Research by Scottish Widows shows almost half (49%) of LGBTQ+ people are on track for less than a minimum retirement lifestyle, compared with 38% of non-LGBTQ+ people. More than half (54%) aren't confident managing their retirement savings, compared with 37% of the wider population, while 30% are not saving for retirement at all. These figures highlight that retirement outcomes are shaped by much more than pension contributions alone. Family circumstances, health, financial confidence, workplace experiences and access to support can all...

June 22, 2026
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19Jun

South Africa. Government invested R18 billion in pension funds in 23 companies and lost 100% of its money

The Public Investment Corporation’s (PIC) Isibaya Fund invested more than R18.2 billion in 23 companies, which ultimately recorded an internal rate of return (IRR) of -100%, meaning the investments lost all their value. The losses came to light through a parliamentary reply to questions from DA MP Andrew Bateman to the Minister of Finance regarding the PIC’s unlisted investment portfolio. The PIC is South Africa’s state-owned asset manager and invests money on behalf of public sector clients, including the Government Employees Pension Fund...

June 19, 2026
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16Jun

US. NYC comptroller launches search for new pension fund asset managers

New York City Comptroller Mark Levine announced Friday that the city’s pension funds would undertake a search for new asset managers to provide passive indexing of public equity stocks for the city’s five public pensions systems. Levine and the city’s pension funds said the search specifically includes seeking indexes that are weighted by market capitalization, alternatively weighted or those based on ESG factors and limits on carbon, so long as they are consistent with each pension system’s investment guidelines, according...

June 16, 2026
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15Jun

US. Federal Rescue Stabilizes Pension Benefits for 1.8 Million Workers

A new Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on multiemployer pension plans lands at a tense moment: a $77.9 billion federal rescue program enacted under the Biden administration has stabilized the retirement benefits of 1.8 million workers, but unresolved questions about improper payments, structural vulnerabilities, and the long-term health of hundreds of plans are now up to a Republican Congress and a Trump administration with a very different view of federal intervention in private sector pensions. More than 11 million workers...

June 15, 2026
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11Jun

A $600 Billion Experiment Kicks Off at the Biggest US Pension Fund

Stephen Gilmore’s 40-year tour of global finance has given him a front-row seat to the Russian debt crisis, the bailout of a financial giant and the rise of sovereign wealth funds. It’s also taken him to a war zone. As the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Tajikistan in the 1990s, Gilmore hunkered down in his office for three days as a militia advanced on the capital city of Dushanbe. Now he has what many consider the hardest job in investing....

June 11, 2026
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