Eli Pars, CFA, is Co-Chief Investment Officer, Head of Alternative Strategies, Co-Head of Convertible Strategies and Senior Co-Portfolio Manager at Calamos Investments. As a Co-CIO, Mr. Pars is responsible for oversight of investment team resources, investment processes, performance and risk.
He also manages investment team members and has portfolio management responsibilities. He is a member of the Calamos Investment Committee, which is charged with providing a top-down framework, maintaining oversight of risk and performance metrics, and evaluating investment process.
In his exclusive 2,991 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Pars explains his investing strategy:
“…We walk in every day and say, “OK, what’s the option market giving us, and how can we have a better trade with the constraint that we want to have, at least a 40 delta of protection to the downside? And we want to have at least 40% notional value of puts. With those constraints, can we find a better hedge?” And a lot of times, we can.”
His market stance is on the positive returns side:
“Obviously, with the Fed guidance and the market expectations that we’re not going to see a lot of increases in the next 12 months, maybe none, with inflation still generally below the Fed’s 2% target, you can make a compelling argument that they really should hold off until they really see some inflation.
Janet Yellen, back when she was Fed Chair, made some comments about how the 2% target should be an average. And so if they spend a lot of time below the 2% target, they should spend theoretically some time above it.
And the fact that we’ve only been above the 2% target for a quarter I think once in the last 10 years, I believe is correct, but certainly not very often. You can make the case that maybe the Fed should be on hold for a little while here.”
The desire to pick stocks reveals a top pick from Mr. Pars:
“One name that we’ve been in and out of over the years — it’s been active in the convertible market and some of our convertible strategies — is Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM). And optically it hasn’t looked cheap really ever since it’s been a public company. But the stock’s up whatever, 15-, 20-, 30-fold, whatever it is, because they’ve continued to grow.”
Get the complete market picture from this experienced portfolio manager in this exclusive 2,991 word interview, only in the Wall Street Transcript.
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