Fixed Income Investment Analyst

Westfield Insurance · Westfield

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Job Summary

The Investment Analyst, under moderate supervision, provides direct support to assigned Senior Portfolio Manager on fixed income, equity, or alternatives portfolios of all Westfield affiliated companies by performing economic, sector and sub-asset class allocation, recommending specific securities, executing trades, and performing ongoing monitoring of securities and portfolios.

This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Job Responsibilities

• Provides direct support to assigned Senior Portfolio Manager on fixed income, equity, or alternatives portfolios by performing economic, sector, sub-asset class and individual security or fund research, recommending specific securities, mutual funds, ETFs, limited partnership deals, or direct coinvestment deals, executing trades or agreements, and performing ongoing monitoring of all portfolio investments.

• Works to define the optimal sub-asset class allocation for each portfolio. Responsible for full life-cycle of investments, including sub-asset class research, portfolio construction, trading, and attribution.

  • Participates in team strategy discussions.  Prepares and presents analysis on assigned sub-asset classes, including fundamental analysis, or interest rate analysis in support of recommendations.

  • Monitors market activity throughout the day, including analysis of market news, issuer and credit spreads, and discussions with industry peers and brokers. Monitors domestic and world situations, analyzing their effect on investments to ensure the successful management of portfolios. 

  • Improves existing investment processes by making them more efficient and effective. Documents processes for business continuity purposes.

• Determines security selection within asset-class assignment(s).

  • Assesses security credit fundamentals such as yield spreads, ratings, earnings, events, and other drivers to determine impact on price performance and liquidity. Conducts duration and convexity analyses on the portfolio. Assesses equity security fundamentals such as business prospects, earnings growth, price/earnings multiples (P/E), dividend growth and yield, market/company events and other drivers to determine impact on total return potential. Conducts investment and operational due diligence of new and current alternative fund managers. Determines portfolio need by security strategy, historical and target performance, fees, sourcing capabilities and persistence of returns.

  • Derives future expected value of securities and their risk-return profile under normal and shocked adverse scenarios. 

  • Employs multiple valuation methodologies to assess company performance. 

  • Analyzes information related to economic conditions, business environment, financial markets, industry, regulations, and geopolitics for use in making investment decisions.

  • Builds and maintains industry and company-specific models with the goal of understanding the economic drivers of a business.

  • Monitors projected cash (income, excess premium, trading cash, etc.), identifies specific security-level investment decisions, and determines timing of purchases.

  • Generates orders and communicates to brokers for execution.  Monitors executions and allocates trades, as appropriate, based on pre-defined allocation requirements.

• Monitors, analyzes, reviews, and reports on performance returns, attribution, and risk reporting metrics for securities in investment portfolios and maintains ongoing watch list. 

  • Conducts economic studies to maintain up-to-date information on holdings and recommends additional purchases, sales, or exchanges. 

  • Identifies / monitors various exposures and risks. Escalates to the Senior Portfolio Manager and the Chief Investment Officer when necessary. 

  • Prepares and discusses monthly results with the Senior Portfolio Manager and the Chief Investment Officer. 

  • Works on the annual planning and budgeting process. Performs monthly income variance analysis.

  • Analyzes securities in a loss position quarterly. Produces a rationale and recommendation on whether it should be impaired.

• Makes regular presentations to the Investment Committee with investment insights and provides a written summary to the Senior Portfolio Manager, the Chief Investment Officer or the Investment Committee as appropriate.

  • Presents sector reviews and updates to the Investment Committee.

  • Periodically presents other reports as required such as those related to ERM, Liquidity, etc.

• Works on projects assigned by the Senior Portfolio Manager or the Chief Investment Officer. 

• Supports the management reporting process as requested to ensure high-quality decision support.

• Manages all stakeholder relationships.  Contributes to the annual assessment of approved broker list.

• Participates in calls with regulators and external auditors to review portfolio actions, OTTI and other potential investment portfolio impacts.

• Participates in periodic assessments of third-party advisors, brokers, and technology providers.

• Travels occasionally in order to perform special assignments, training, industry events, investment/economic research and/or between office locations.

Job Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience applying quantitative and qualitative analytical skills to financial, investment, credit, securities, portfolio, or research data. 
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Accounting, Engineering, Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Business, or a related field, or equivalent work experience. 

Location 

Hybrid - defined as working three or more days per week in the office

Licenses and Certifications  

• Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)

Behavioral Competencies

• Collaborates
• Communicates Effectively
• Customer Focus
• Decision Quality
• Nimble Learning

Technical Skills

• Investment Research 

• Financial Modeling 

• Portfolio Reporting 

• Market Analysis 

• Bloomberg 

• Microsoft Office 

• Trade Support

This job description describes the general nature and level of work performed in this role. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, skills, responsibilities, knowledge, etc. These may be subject to change and additional functions may be assigned as needed by management.

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