Smith Expert Draws Accolades in Movement to Improve Capital Markets

Russ Wermers' recent work toward restoring integrity to capital markets has garnered international recognition.

He has earned a top industry award for research into improving hedge fund monitoring and was recently tapped to collaborate with other experts to redefine global standards for evaluating investment management.

Wermers, associate professor of finance in the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, captured first place in the Investment Management Consultants Association’s 2012 Journal of Investment Consulting Academic Paper Competition. Announced Jan. 10, the winning paper, 'Monitoring Daily Hedge Fund Performance When Only Monthly Data is Available," is forthcoming in the journal and cited by the association as "a useful process for accurately forecasting daily returns of hedge funds, which helps advisors and investors to better weigh the risk and value within their portfolios."

In the past year, Wermers published "Performance Evaluation and Attribution of Investment Managers," a textbook detailing the latest, most optimal methods for judging both active and passive managers of mutual fund and hedge funds. The work prompted the 70,000-member Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute to recruit Wermers to help devise the curriculum for a new Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement – the industry’s international accreditation for investment performance analysis.

Vojislav (Max) Maksimovic, the Dean's Chair Professor of Finance and chair of Smith’s finance department, says the recent developments affirm Wermers – who earned a university-wide teaching award in 2005 – "as both a research leader in the field of global investment management and invaluable resource to Smith finance students for cutting-edge insight to capital markets."