Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Friday 13 August 2021
“I consider it reasonable for investors to give a nod to the possibility of higher inflation, but not to significantly invert asset allocations in response to macro expectations that may or may not prove accurate.” - Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, in his July 2021 memo to clients.
All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham
P.S. Register now for the 20th annual Portfolio Construction Forum Strategies Conference 2021 “The end justifies the means!”. Attend at a hosted live-site, or via livestream and earn 12-20 CE/CPD hours. More info

Markets | See more from Professor Rajan at Strategies Conference 2021 - register below

The dangers of endless quantitative easing
Inflation readings in the US have shot up in recent months. At the same time, stock markets are flirting with all-time highs. Something in all this does not add up.
Raghuram Rajan, University of Chicago Booth School of Business | Read

Markets | See more from Woody at Strategies Conference 2021 - register below

Five reasons inflation will be permanently higher
Starting in mid to late 2022, five structural changes will begin to kick in that will drive inflation to between 4% and 6% in the years following 2022. These changes will impact inflation for decades.
Woody Brock, SED | Read

Philosophy | Strategies | As seen at last month’s All Things Considered Zoominar

Portfolio control is shifting back to a centralised model
With several catalysts impacting on the Australian advice landscape, we are seeing a resurgence back to centrally developed investment portfolio construction solutions - but the approach differs to history.
David Hutchison, NMG Consulting | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Investing

Research Review: Does SRI do good?
Many research papers address the investment performance of sustainable investing - few have investigated whether this form of investing actually achieves the intended good. Two papers address that gap.
Ron Bird, Australian National University & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Read

Finology | See more from Rob at Strategies Conference 2021 - register below

To improve client discovery, we must focus more on self-awareness
Self-awareness has been hailed as one of the most important meta-skills of the 21st century. In an investment advice context, both advisers and clients benefit from engaging in activities that promote its development.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets | Investing

Clarification
The latest attestation from Circle (USDC) shows they hold 61% in cash and breaks down the remainder…
Hadley Rich, Portfolio Construction Forum | Read

Philosophy | Portfolio Construction Forum proudly supports The Wayside Chapel

The gift of tears
Our usual mode of operation isn’t to see others as “they are”, rather we tend to see the others and the world as “we are”. Being lost in a culture of self-improvement, it is easy to assume that others would benefit from the accumulated wisdom of our discontented strivings for impossible goals and standards…
Jon Owen, Wayside Chapel | Read

Did you know? You can find ethics hours using our advanced Search
You can use our advanced Search function to find the continuing education learning activities that most interest you, suit your learning style, and/or meet the requirements of your licensee. You can search by CE competency (e.g. Ethics hours), by the type of CE regime (ASIC, FASEA, FPA, CIMA, etc), by author, by knowledge domain (Philosophy, Markets, Strategies, Investing, Finology), by way of learning (read, watch, or listen), year or program (e.g. Strategies Conference, Markets Summit). Just click on the Search icon at the top of any page, and click the “More” button to bring up the search fields. Get searching for CE

Finology | Invitation to investment advisers

Complimentary self-assessment to benchmark your Client Care & Practice knowledge and skills
FASEA requires that financial advisers continually improve their client care and practice knowledge and skills - doing so makes obvious business sense, as well. Our new Finology Benchmarking Indices (FBI) self assessment tool helps you benchmark your investing biases, beliefs and behaviours versus peers, to further empower your “client care and practice” knowledge and skills. It’s complimentary to our members who give investment advice, while we continue to develop it.
Portfolio Construction Forum | 0.50 CE | Take the FBI self-assessment

Strategies

Portfolio Construction Forum Strategies Conference 2021 “The end justifies the means!”
AEST Wed-Thu 25-26 Aug 2021
Portfolio construction is only “successful” when it helps clients achieve their financial goals. Yet delivering on those goals – be it financial independence or, at the very least, a reasonable standard of living in retirement – is more challenging than ever. Our 20th annual Strategies Conference will challenge and refresh your portfolio construction thinking, as we debate strategies to help build better quality investor portfolios, capable of achieving client goals out into the future.
Attend at a hosted live-site, or via livestream | 12-20 CE | Register now!

Finology

Finology Summit 2021 “Behavioural FINance and investor psychOLOGY”
AEDT Wed 13 Oct 2021
Established in 2016, Finology Summit is THE behavioural finance (“fin”) and investment psychology (“ology”) program of the year. The program features an exceptional Faculty of experts from around the world, each offering their best high conviction ideas on behavioural finance and/or investor psychology, and the investment implications. Finology knowledge and skills help us better identify and understand how our own and other people’s different investing biases, beliefs and behaviours impact investment markets and portfolio construction practices - and therefore, investment outcomes - to enable better quality investor portfolios.
Attend live in-studio, at a hosted live-site, or via livestream | 7-11 CE | Register now!

Markets

Central banking, fast and slow
How transitory is today’s inflation? One camp has a surprisingly strong conviction that the current uptick in inflation will sharply reverse itself. Others, including me, are not so sure.
Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz | Read

Markets | Investing

The stablecoin illusion
The stability of stablecoins is an illusion. They are unlikely to replace Federal Reserve money, unlikely to revolutionise finance, and unlikely to realise the dreams of their libertarian enthusiasts.
Barry Eichengreen, University of California | 1 comment | Read

Markets

The Long View: Waiting for a pullback?
A period of slower, yet still robust, economic and earnings growth will be powerful enough to elongate the current bull market. Long-term investors should take advantage of any market pullback.
Jeff Schulze, ClearBridge Investments | 0.50 CE | Read

Markets | Finology

Research Review: Narrative economics and activist short selling
Activist short sellers have received increasing attention - and notoriety - in recent years. This paper adopts the lens of narrative economics to reveal useful insights into the dynamics of activist short selling.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE | Read

Strategies | Editor’s Pick!

The big picture of longevity planning
During accumulation, the concept of portfolio longevity is quite meaningless. Eventually, peak-wealth is achieved and withdrawals exceed investment gains. Managing portfolio longevity becomes critical.
Moshe Milevsky, York University | 0.50 CE | Watch

Markets

The looming stagflationary debt crisis
The stagflation of the 1970s will soon meet the debt crises of the post-2008 period. The question is not if but when.
Nouriel Roubini, Roubini Macro Associates | Read

Strategies

A few ES(G) investment thoughts
When constructing investment portfolios, one of the first questions is the objective - generally, the desired return. But ES investors have a dual investment objective. So which takes precedence?
Michael Furey, Delta Research & Advisory | Read

Investing

Research Review: Who wins from alternative investing?
High allocations to alternatives are often justified on the basis of return and diversification advantages. Two recent papers show that with private equity and hedge fund, it’s the managers who are the real winners.
Ron Bird, Australian National University & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Read

Finology | As seen at last month’s All Things Considered Zoominar

A guide to manipulation (for honest people!)
Many investment professionals are typically quite skilled at manipulation, so those researching their funds need to protect themselves against manipulation as they conduct their due diligence.
Herman Brodie, Prospecta | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

Finology | Editor’s Pick!

Building future-proof portfolios requires emotional agility
The future is, by definition, uncertain, as are financial markets. To prosper in such an environment, we need to be emotionally agile in order to align our values and actions and, in turn, help investors achieve their financial goals.
Susan David, Harvard Medical School | 0.75 CE | Read, Watch, Listen

Markets | Strategies | Finology

Australian version
The data is available for 12,000 companies across 75 countries. In Australia, the data is available for something like 500 companies…
Ron Bird, Australian National University & Portfolio Construction Forum | Read

Forum CE Library - over 620 CE/CPD accredited learning resources
Complimentary for all Forum members, the Forum’s online on-demand CE Library offers over 620 CE/CPD hours of accredited learning resources, to help members meet the CE/CPD requirements of 20 governing bodies (regulators, associations, and institutes) including ASIC, APRA, FASEA, FMA, AFA, FPA and CIMA^® CE/CPD requirements, to name a few.
Earn CE/CPD hours

Forum CIMA CE Library - over 75 CE hours
This subset of the full Forum CE Library features just those learning resources that are accredited for CIMA CE hours, so CIMA certificants can more easily find learning resources to meet their recertification obligation (at the same time as meeting the CE/CPD requirements of other governing bodies e.g. ASIC, APRA, FASEA, FMA, etc).
Earn CIMA CE hours

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