Too many investors hedging the wrong way: Pimco

Sydney

PACIFIC Investment Management Co says one-size-fits-all hedging tactics are undermining pension returns.

Many institutional investors choose uniform currency protection for each asset class, and that means they miss out on the opportunity to benefit from the way some exchange rates are correlated with moves in riskier assets, says Pimco, which oversees US$1.5 trillion of assets. So Australian-based investors fail to reap the full benefits from their dollar's tendency to strengthen when stock markets rise and their Japanese counterparts aren't getting the most from the yen's habit of climbing when equities fall.