Who has the keys to the time machine?

Anyone working on a fixed income team these days probably wishes they had the keys to Doc Brown’s time travelling DeLorean.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Steven Spielberg’s Back to the Future movie franchise, the plot revolves around a crazy-haired scientist, Doc Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), and his young friend, Marty McFly (Michael J Fox), who travel through time on various adventures in a 1980s sports car.

Now, I would likely be correct in assuming that if anyone had this time machine, performance analyst or not, that they would use it for personal reasons rather than for work.

That said, if the DeLorean was only available for the purposes of seeing the future of fixed income attribution, then I believe there would still be a huge queue among the practitioners in this industry to take a drive, er, flight. At least, that’s what I got from reading our cover story this issue: Driving towards uncertainty (page 8).

Accomplished author and long-time fixed income expert, Andrew Kophamel of State Street Australia, gives his observations on this hot topic. Kophamel stresses that since he’s been working in this industry — nine years — he has seen plenty of advancements in the field of fixed income. However, he also mentions that based on the complexity of this area, it’s hard to know what will happen down the road. This does not prevent Kophamel from taking a trip in his mental DeLorean and giving his thoughts on the days, weeks and years to come in this dynamic field.

In the spotlight this issue, Anne Harrison of Aegon (page 18) talks about her love of music and how after 21 years in business, she still loves the challenges associated with the performance measurement field.

Also, editorial board member Jim Trotter of Northern Trust writes the first part of a two-part series on relationships between performance measurers and fund managers.

Staying with cars and time, Andrew Colin has written an insightful, metaphorical look at system analytics and how the current software industry should be following Ford’s past example of building and mass-producing the Model T car.

This issue certainly deals with the past, present and future. Enjoy.