Purpose -This article analyzes fundamental indexation in Brazil relative to the IBrX 100 and selected stock funds in the period between June 2003 and May 2015. This strategy relies on weights based on fundamental indicators and not on market prices.Design/methodology/approach -Fundamental indices built with the IBrX 100 stocks were weighted according to fundamental indicators. The fundamental weighting method sets the weight of each stock as proportional to a previously determined fundament value. This article also considers an ordinal weighting.Findings -The results indicate that fundamental indices do not display positive and statistically significant returns and alphas after adjusting a five risk factor model and transaction costs. The ordinal weighting suggests that fundamental indicator outliers do not drive results. The evidence also suggests that fundamental indices might perform better in bear markets.Originality/value -In general, fundamental indices behave like value stocks and do not present abnormal returns. This is consistent with the absence of fundamental index products in the Brazilian market.Keywords -active portfolio management, passive portfolio management, fundamental indexation, stock funds.

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This article assesses the impact of alternative assets on the performance of Brazilian private pension funds. Few studies touch on this topic in Brazil and most only investigate the addition of alternative assets and their impact on the performance. The market of open private pension funds in Brazil has been growing rapidly in recent years and gaining much relevance, especially after the announcement of the reformulation of the Brazilian pension system. In 2018, the Free Benefit Generating Plan (PGBL) and the Free Benefit Generating Life (VGBL) represented more than 94% of total assets in their sector. The Brazilian specially constituted investment funds (FIEs) of PGBL and VGBL private pension plans are characterized by their dependence on fixed income assets. Brazil currently faces an unprecedent low interest rate scenario - which, following a worldwide panorama, seems to be set for a long time - and pension fund managers must search for alternative investments that aggregate both risk premia and diversification. The results of this study may support managers in this little-discussed matter. We compare the performance of FIEs without additional alternative assets versus the portfolio with alternative assets, adding a hedge fund index, an equity mutual funds index, a commodity index, an electric power index, a public utilities index, a gold index, and a real estate index. Several performance measures were used, considering Brazilian regulations and a rebalancing strategy. Our results showed that almost all alternative assets used in this study improved the performance of the Brazilian FIEs of PGBL and VGBL private pension plans, especially the public utilities index and the hedge fund index. Some even improved the portfolio tail risk.

The case “Vale S.A. — Cobalt Streaming” describes a transaction that has taken place at Vale, a Brazilian mining company, and one of the most important in its segment. The transaction was developed to de-risk an important project for an expansion of a mine in the province of Newfoundland & Labrador in Canada. By streaming the cobalt production, Vale was able to get a competitive internal rate of return for the project compared to the lower level of risk the project would then offer. The case detailed the negotiation since the beginning until the company faced the challenge of choosing from the final proposals. The case allows the discussion of important aspects regarding project valuation: risk mitigation through the streaming negotiation, several different types of risk influencing the main issue of the case, decisions about the assumptions used, discussion about debt/equity characteristics on the overall project from Vale’s perspectives, and the evaluation of a project with non-conventional cash flow, given a substantial upfront revenue due to the streaming contract. So, the case is recommended for the disciplines of Financial Management, Project Valuation, or Risk Analysis in post-graduate courses of Business Administration and Finance.

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This paper analyzes whether some macroeconomic factors (country risk, IBrX volatility and Interbank Certificate of Deposit) are related to mutual fund flows for the period between January 2005 and August 2014. In order to investigate whether the flow series behaved differently during this period, the Chow test was conducted for September 2008 (the month in which the Lehman Brothers investment bank collapsed). The regressions were performed and the parameters were estimated through the OLS

Objective: To verify abnormal risk-adjusted returns in Brazilian stock portfolios formed according to the F-Score that indicates the presence of good fundamentals. Method: The sample has 146 companies per year on average, includes the period of adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from July 2008 to June 2018 and uses equally weighted portfolios formed at the end of June of each year with information from the previous year. Results: The high F-Score portfolio showed greater average returns, lower beta, and a positive and significant alpha that disappeared in the sub-period initiating after the full adoption of IFRS. Significant coefficients for the small capitalization risk premium and egalitarian weighting suggest that large companies do not dominate its performance. High and low F-Score portfolios cannot be characterized as value stocks. The low F-Score portfolio displayed a negative and significant coefficient for the moment factor, suggesting persistence of negative returns. Contributions: Portfolios with high F-Score may have less chance of catastrophic returns. The technique can be employed by less sophisticated investors to build defensive portfolios of companies with good fundamentals.

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