Risk Parity with RPAR ETF creators Alex Shahidi and Damien Bisserier

Sep 29, 2020

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day.

It is, without a doubt, the most logical starting point for any portfolio that seeks both global diversity and risk balance. Preparation before prediction. First, do no harm. Yet there is a wide range of ways to structure and deploy Risk Parity – as always, the devil is in the details (for a deeper dive check out our recent whitepaper). We had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Shahidi and Damien Bisserier (co-founders of Evoke Wealth and ARIS Consulting), creators of the popular RPAR ETF, on topics that included:

• Their history and journey before joining forces
• Multiple definitions and iterations of Risk Parity
• The consistent mispricing of global diversification benefits (why Risk Parity works)
• Why the investment industry is wired to overweight prediction and underweight preparation
• Behavioral hurdles and the real struggle with FOMO

Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Risk Parity debate without addressing the role of bonds in the current zero-bound environment and the importance of duration adjustments on bond holdings, as well as the role of currencies and different ways of obtaining exposure to commodities. A true Risk Parity primer.

Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.