Prisoner of America

I wanted to expose the fact that many understand that we do not live in a just world but they do nothing to fight against it either, which makes them part of the problem. It just shows that you can know something is wrong, but if you chose not to do anything about it, then you have sided with the oppressors

Master\u27s Project: An Ecological Assessment of Merck Forest & Farmland Center, Rupert, Vermont

Merck Forest & Farmland Center is a 3190-acre property in Rupert, VT. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to the education of sustainable land management and farming practices. The Board of Trustees of Merck Forest is considering placing a conservation easement on the property through the Vermont Land Trust. In order to inform the easement recommendations a site assessment is necessary. During the summer of 2014, I mapped the natural communities to discover any ecologically sensitive areas on the property. Following the guidelines set by the Vermont Natural Heritage Program, I determined the element occurrence of rarity for each natural community and provided recommendations on management for the property. Using the Vermont Center for Ecostudies’ bird monitoring plot data I estimated the value of Merck Forest for habitat availability and diversity. Using the criteria of habitat connectivity, landscape complexity, and resiliency, I assessed the current and potential ecological value of this parcel in a regional context. I recommend a conservation strategy that follows a nested approach of preservation or ‘no-touch’ management areas within a larger matrix of conserved, actively managed land

Opportunities for Language Learning - a guide for students and parents

The booklet contains an outline of the different options givinging specific examples and illustrative case studies. The Teachers' Notes which accompany the booklet give some ideas about how to use this resource to help communicate the message to Sixth Form students in the process of making their future study choices. You can download the pdf here or contact us at [email protected] to request hard copies

"How to..." guide to holding an animation workshop in school

Thinking of holding a language event at school but don’t know where to start? We have created "How to..." guides from our most popular events to help you replicate them back in school. Each guide contains a full description of how to run the event including essential considerations, some sample programmes and task lists to give you an idea of what needs to be done and how to plan out the day. We also have some workshop ideas and resources which can be adapted for use with any language. You may find some the activities can be adapted to deliver during class time rather than as a formal event - please feel free to use these guides as you wish

Managed Features and Hedge Funds:

In this paper we study the possible role of managed futures in portfolios of stocks, bonds and hedge funds. We find that allocating to managed futures allow investors to achieve a very substantial degree of overall risk reduction at limited costs. Apart from their lower expected return, managed futures appear to be more effective diversifiers than hedge funds. Adding managed futures to a portfolio of stocks and bonds will reduce that portfolio’s standard deviation more and quicker than hedge funds will, and without the undesirable side-effects on skewness and kurtosis. Overall portfolio standard deviation can be reduced further by combining both hedge funds and managed futures with stocks and bonds. As long as at least 45-50% of the alternatives allocation is allocated to managed futures, this again will not have any negative side-effects on skewness and kurtosis.

Indexation doesn't make sense

In this brief note we argue that for investors that are serious about matching (the risks of) assets and liabilities, indexation is a doubtful proposition as significant autonomous changes may occur in the industry allocation and accompanying risk-return profile of the portfolio underlying the index. The name of the index may not change, but the underlying portfolio does!

In Search of the Optimal Fund of Hedge Funds

In this paper we investigate whether it is possible for a fund of hedge funds to not only offer investors access to a diversified basket of hedge funds but to provide skewness protection at the same time. We study two different strategies. The first is for a fund to buy stock index puts and leverage itself, in line with the skewness reduction strategy proposed earlier in Kat (2002). In general, the latter strategy is too dependent on the actual asset allocation strategy followed by investors to allow a fund to be constructed that is optimal for all investors at the same time. However, for investors that invest more or less equal amounts in stocks and bonds and who keep their hedge fund allocation below 30% such a fund can indeed be structured. The second strategy is for a fund to buy put options on itself. We show that this does allow a fund to offer skewness protection to different types of investors at the same time, but compared to the optimal strategy the protection will be somewhat less accurate. Under both strategies the fund of funds is likely to incur a significant loss in expected return. As long as the hedge fund allocation stays below 30%, however, the loss of expected return on investors’ overall portfolios will remain limited.

Taking the Sting out of Hedge Funds

Although the inclusion of hedge funds in an investment portfolio can significantly improve that portfolio’s mean-variance characteristics, it can also be expected to lead to significantly lower skewness and higher kurtosis. In this paper we show how this highly undesirable side-effect can be neutralized by allocating a fraction of wealth to out-of-the-money put options on the relevant equity index. Based on monthly return data over the period 1994-2001 we show that investors who want to fully eradicate the negative skewness of portfolios containing stocks, bonds and hedge funds will have to sacrifice a not insignificant part of their expected return. Investors who limit themselves to neutralizing only the additional skewness caused by the inclusion of hedge funds will be able to do so at much more favourable terms, however. The latter only need to allocate a small fraction of wealth to index puts and accept a drop in expected return that is unlikely to exceed 1% per annum, depending on the hedge fund allocation. This means that in the current low interest rate environment the costs of eliminating the unwanted skewness effect of hedge funds need not be prohibitively high.

Portfolios of Hedge Funds What Investors Really Invest In

Using monthly return data over the period June 1994 – May 2001 we investigate the performance of randomly selected baskets of hedge funds ranging in size from 1 to 20 funds. The analysis shows that increasing the number of funds can be expected to lead not only to a lower standard deviation but also, and less attractive, to lower skewness and increased correlation with the stock market. Most of the change occurs for relatively small portfolios. Holding more than 15 funds changes little. The population average appears to be a good approximation for the average basket of 15 or more funds. With 15 funds, however, there is still a substantial degree of variation in performance between baskets, which dissolves only slowly when the number of funds is increased. Survivorship bias is largely independent of portfolio size and thus cannot be diversified away. Finally, our efficiency test indicates that one only needs to combine a small number of funds to obtain a substantially more efficient risk-return profile than that offered by the average individual hedge fund.