Macroeconomics and Multi-Asset

The real economy is the foundation for financial markets. A deep understanding of, and quantification of the drivers of the real economy are needed to have an outlook on the macroeconomy. Building upon the outlook for the global macroeconomy, the transmission mechanism from the economy to the drivers of the different asset classes, the interlinkages and feedback loop among the different asset classes; this is her approach for having an outlook on the return and risk opportunities in each asset class. Apart from the risk and return for the different asset classes, understanding the time-varying correlations is critical to building a diversified multi-asset portfolio. Even for investors in an individual asset class, incorporating signals from other asset-classes leads to more efficient portfolios. Indrani’s experience as Head of Macro and Cross-Asset Research in Nuveen Solutions group, and leading Economic Scenario Design in TIAA’s Enterprise Risk speaks of her expertise in macro and multi-assets. Till end-June 2020, she was Managing Director and Head of Research at the Nuveen (a TIAA company) Solutions Group, leading asset allocation research and capital market assumptions across all multi-asset portfolios. Immediately prior, she was Managing Director – Macro Risk in TIAA, responsible for macroeconomic and financial markets analysis, asset valuation models, and scenario design and stress testing.

ESG and Climate Change

ESG and Climate Change (on a granular level this is the ‘E’ in ESG, and a broad macro issue) are important drivers, to various degree, in every asset class and to both the real economy and financial markets. Indrani has deep expertise in ESG Investing and climate change issues; As Managing Director - Macro in TIAA, she co-led the study on “Climate Change and Impact on Financial Markets” in TIAA, analyzing the transmission channel and quantifying the impact of climate change on different asset classes (credit, sovereign bonds, muni bonds, equities. real assets and currencies). She was a lead in the Climate Change Emerging Risks team. In her role as Head of Quantitative Research at New Amsterdam Partners, sub-advising the socially responsible Calvert funds, she did a lot of work incorporating ESG factors into portfolio construction even prior to the financial crisis and much of the ESG work was published in research journals (Journal of Investing, NYSSA Finance Professional Post) and heavily covered by leading media. She has spoken extensively at leading conferences on why ESG is a critical information source for higher risk-adjusted portfolio returns. She is currently working on ESG and impact investing research assignments with GIIN (Global Impact Investing Network).

Quantitative Research

Understanding the big picture and the business drivers is key to successful investing, and to efficiently utilize the huge amounts of data, it is important to build quantitative models based on these drivers. Quantitative models are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for successful investing. This is the philosophy behind Indrani’s twenty plus years’ experience in investing across private and public markets; understanding the key drivers, building efficient quantitative models, interpreting the output of different models, and over-laying that with data points not built into models in order to capture key investment implications. Her early career experience as an investment analyst for GE Capital, evaluating private market investments for GE’s own balance sheet gave a deep understanding of business drivers. Subsequent experience as Head of Quantitative Research leading investment models and portfolio analytics for institutional equity funds, and leading macro and multi-asset research in TIAA/ Nuveen group speak of the successful experience with quantitative research based on the fundamental analysis of the economy and financial markets.