Good morning! Today Alvar interviews his neighbor Omar, who has worked for quite a few large financial institutions within the sector of active funds: we will talk about mutual funds, active trading, large funds, and hear Omar’s insights on investing from his unique perspective. Enjoy!

We also talk about:

• Funds implementation
• Bond issues
• Currency operations
• FTSE 100
• Hedge funds regulations
• Geographical allocation

 

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A ride through the world of fund investment.

Omar has worked for many large financial institutions including Citi and HSBC, and it proved to be an invaluable experience to understand how funds work. He then worked for wealth and asset management firms, and this leads him to be able to see both the financial/accounting side and the investment side of fund management. With this deep and diversified knowledge, he is an ideal guide to take us through the many facets of funds investment, and he shares a lot of valuable information to help us clearly understand this complex subject.

Investing with financial institutions

An interesting topic is a difference between investing on our own or using the services of one of these large financial institutions. Omar explains that one of the main differences is the sheer power that these entities have compared to a single individual, which of course translates to wealth availability, but also the greater variety of financial mechanisms at their disposal. Omar brings many examples like liquidity sweep or fx hedging, things that require cutting-edge technology, the ability to reach every market worldwide, and a different set of rules for things like international money transfer. And don’t forget an army of lawyers!

How to have access to the benefits of institutional investing

As retail investors, there are some options we can explore to have access at least to the same financial instruments that these companies use, although of course with a very different ‘weight’. Minor brokerage companies don’t have the capabilities of the big institutions, but they can exploit different strategies like focusing on a particular niche or reaching frontier markets like Vietnam or Cambodia for interesting results.

Let us know what you think about the Interview in the comments or our Facebook Group!