Alka Banerjee is Managing Director, Product Management at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). Alka heads up S&P DJI’s Product Management Group, which has global responsibility for the commercial success of each of S&P DJI’s product lines: U.S. Equity, Global Equity, Fixed Income, Commodities, Real Assets, Strategy, and Custom indices, as well as Data.
Since September 2013, Alka has served as CEO of Asia Index Private Limited, a joint venture between S&P DJI and the BSE of Mumbai, India’s premier stock exchange.
Alka has over 18 years of experience in the global indexing business, both at S&P DJI, and at the Bank of New York. She has pioneered a large number of initiatives at S&P DJI, ranging from developing global smart beta indices to more niche themes like Shariah and socially responsible investing. In addition to evaluating and improving existing market capitalization weighted benchmarks, Alka has led S&P DJI’s efforts for new index developments for Africa, China, Korea, India, Latin America, and throughout the Middle East.
Alka frequently presents at indexing and investing events, and is widely cited in the press. In 2015, she was recognized as one of the twenty most influential global Indian women by The Economic Times, one of India’s leading newspapers. Alka holds a master’s in economics from Lucknow University in India and an MBA in finance from Pace University in New York.Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks have taken a strong hold in the developed investing space. Previously, the concept had resided in the domain of “do gooders” and “tree huggers” seeking to make a better world. So what has changed so much that it is now taking root in mainstream investing? By and large, ESG Read more […]
Index derivatives exist for all asset classes, and over time their use has grown exponentially for a variety of purposes. Still, many myths abound that their chief function is for speculative activity. The ability to leverage by investing a small amount to gain exposure to a much larger investment is the key benefit of index Read more […]
The fixed income market has historically been relatively illiquid in India, as well as globally. The Indian bond market is smaller than other Asian markets like China and Korea, but it is more liquid than they are, yet it is still largely inaccessible to retail investors. The nature of trading that is almost entirely over Read more […]
As large sums of global money flows now follow global indices, it is important to understand how global index providers decide on country classifications and country weightages. A global equity index typically has two components, a developed market index and an emerging market index. Until the nineties, emerging market investments were not necessarily mandatory for Read more […]
Recent SEBI guidelines have highlighted the issue of flawed benchmark usage in the Indian mutual fund industry. Globally funds are required to be transparent and provide complete information around their investment philosophy and within that requirement of transparency. The fund manager is given the leeway to choose their own appropriate benchmark. First, in this context, Read more […]
A recent stipulation by SEBI for the mutual fund industry outlines how to treat size classifications and suggests that funds need to be very explicit in their stock selection and fund categorization when it comes to stock sizes. SEBI laid down rules for categorizing funds based on component stock sizes and fund houses have to Read more […]
Monday’s stock market crash coming on the heels of the US market fall on Friday, August 22nd is creating jitters for investors around the world. However the signals have been around for some time, with many predicting for some time an end to the bull run that US market has enjoyed for the last 6 Read more […]
The rise of passive investing in recent times has had a large influence on global fund flows. Country weights in the global benchmarks are increasingly determining the amount of funds that flow into various stock markets. The US with its 50% share in the global benchmarks has dominated the global investing scene for a very Read more […]
The recently published research paper on S&P GIVI®: Factor Investing: A Review of the S&P Global Intrinsic Value Index analyzes in detail the source of GIVI returns globally and regionally. S&P GIVI is a multi-factor global index which provides exposure to low volatility and the value factors by removing 30% of the highest beta stocks Read more […]
2013 was a seminal year for US equities with markets going up 33%. Emerging markets on the other hand did not fare so well and were relatively flat with a negative 1.27%. India ended the year down at 4.8%, hit strongly by currency woes, but the year was very volatile for most emerging markets. Some Read more […]