Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Friday 23 September 2022

“Many zombie institutions, zombie households, corporates, banks, shadow banks and zombie countries are going to die.” - Economist Nouriel Roubini in an interview with Bloomberg (19 September 2022)

All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham
P.S. Check out our new online short course! Led by behavioural finance expert, Herman Brodie, the Behavioural Finance - Investment Decision-Making course will help you identify, analyse and evaluate the principal human preferences that influence decision-making in situations of uncertainty, so you can recognise and identify these preferences in others, to improve investment decision-making. Find out more

Markets

Crockpot: It is a real stock-pickers market!
Such is the current narrative from active managers, and it may well be true. But, we should consider what is meant by “a stock-pickers market”. As for the concept that alpha grows on trees? It’s nuts and you can clearly see it’s nuts!
Tim Farrelly, farrelly’s Investment Strategy | Read

Philosophy | Finology

Rich Pickings: Alex Lennard
Rich Pickings explores the investment beliefs and philosophies of prominent professional investors. In this episode, I’m in conversation with Alex Lennard, Investment Director, Ruffer in London.
Graham Rich, Portfolio Construction Forum | Read, Watch, Listen

Markets | Strategies | Rated in the top 5 at Strategies Conference 2022

Geopolitical alpha ain’t where it used to be!
With geopolitical tensions on the rise, portfolio construction practitioners need a framework for making sense of the cacophony of geopolitical risks with the eye towards generating investment-relevant insights.
Marko Papic, Clocktower Group | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Investing | Rated in the top 5 at Strategies Conference 2022

Investors can achieve net-zero without giving up returns
Decarbonisation of the economy is the most important thematic of the next 30 years. The future ain’t what it used to be! Investors can achieve net-zero portfolios without compromising returns or increasing risk by using “green shorts”.
David Allen, Plato Investment Management | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets | Rated in the top 5 at Strategies Conference 2022

Divergent inflation is an unprecedented setup for Asia
Post Covid, the inflation equation has changed between the East and the West. Diverging monetary policy settings and subsequent future economic growth favour the East in a world where the future ain’t what it used to be.
Andrew Swan, MAN GLG | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Philosophy | Finology

Finology Summit 2022 “Debating biases, beliefs and behaviours in portfolios!”
AEDT 8.30am-5.30pm Tue 06 Dec 2022
Established in 2016, Portfolio Construction Forum Finology Summit will help you better identify and understand how investing biases, beliefs and behaviours impact investment markets and portfolio construction practices - and therefore, investment outcomes - to help you build better quality investor portfolios.
Join us in person at our live studio, a live site, or via live stream | 7-11 CE | Mark Your Diary!

Markets | Philosophy

Why can’t we all be rich?
It is past time that we shift our understanding of where the hinge of global economic history lies. I chose 1870 which is when the industrial research lab, the modern corporation, and full globalisation fell into place.
J. Bradford DeLong, University of California, Berkeley | Read

Markets | Strategies | As seen at Strategies Conference 2022

Australia’s future ain’t what it used to be!
The latest national census reveals that Australia is a nation determined to change direction. This will re-shape Australia’s economic and cultural landscape and influence the way that practitioners build multi-asset portfolios capable of meeting the long-term financial goals of Australians.
Bernard Salt, Allegra Spender and Tassos Stassopoulos | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Philosophy | Finology | As seen at Finology Masterclass 2022

Quality portfolio construction requires a whole-brain approach
A whole-brain approach to portfolio construction requires a combination of knowledge, skill and expertise across the technical, analytical “fundamental” topics AND the human factors is essential for better quality portfolios.
Graham Rich and Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

Finology | As seen at Finology Masterclass 2022

Investors are blind to what they do not want to see
The theory of cognitive dissonance was proposed in the 1930s by psychologist Leon Festinger. Understanding how cognitive dissonance can bias our investment decision making, and recognising when our behaviour is being driven by it, is vital.
Herman Brodie, Prospecta | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets | Strategies | Investing | Finology | Philosophy

Research Review: The adaptive markets hypothesis
Despite widespread criticism of the efficient markets hypothesis, development of comparably broad alternatives has been lacking. One promising direction is the adaptive markets hypothesis which seeks apply the concepts and methods of ecology and evolutionary biology to financial market dynamics.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 2.50 CE | Read

Markets

Is the US in recession?
Next week, the US BEA releases its advance estimate of second-quarter GDP growth. Brace yourself for headlines claiming that the US economy is in recession, and all market reactions that will trigger. But do not be surprised if you’re told the opposite two months later.
Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University | Read

Markets

Summers and the great inflation rate fallacy
Harvard’s Lawrence Summers was interviewed about inflation last month. His comments focused on a single entity - the Fed. But fighting the causes of today’s higher inflation is simply not within the Fed’s power.
Woody Brock, Strategic Economic Decisions | Read

Markets | Strategies

Spotlight on the bond bear market
The past 18 months has seen the biggest bond bear market in almost 50 years. In this Spotlight, we look at why bond prices have fallen so much, how this bear market compares with others, and what returns and volatility we are likely to see going ahead.
Tim Farrelly, farrelly’s Investment Strategy | Read

Investing

Research Roundtable - Aspect Diversified Futures
This Research Roundtable focused on the Aspect Capital Diversified Futures strategy, a systemic, momentum-based managed futures investment strategy.
Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE | Read, Watch

Markets

Research Review: Two for me
These two papers relate to some interesting quirks of the finance industry. The first finds that the accuracy of currency forecasts is worse than could be achieved from random predictions. The second gives a different slant of the large increase in the size of the financial sector.
Ron Bird, Portfolio Construction Forum | 2.00 CE | Read

Markets | As seen at Research Symposium June 2022

Free and fair global markets require shared values
As policymakers begin to craft a new Bretton Woods, and seek to embed the values that liberal democracies want to uphold, practitioners must understand the implications for portfolios.
Rana Foroohar, Financial Times & CNN | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets

Stagflation is coming!
We may indeed be in for a shortish period of high inflation and low growth - but as to this leading to 1980s-style stagflation? It’s nuts and you can clearly see it’s nuts!
Tim Farrelly, farrelly’s Investment Strategy | Read

Strategies | As seen at Research Symposium June 2022

Today’s market requires an alternative course of action
The next 10 years are likely to be dramatically different than the last 10 years, and investors will need allocations to alternative investments in this challenging environment.
Tony Davidow, T. Davidow Consulting | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Investing | As seen at Research Symposium June 2022

We must invest with a multi-factor mindset
We must take a multi-factor approach to analysing funds – including ESG, Quality, Size, amongst others – to ensure portfolios reflect the investor’s longer-term philosophy and/or shorter term views.
Michael Furey, Delta Research & Advisory | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Finology | As seen at Research Symposium June 2022

We can harness neuroscientific insights to generate alpha
Prolonged exposure to high volatility causes investors to subsequently underestimate volatility (and vice versa), leading to predictability in stock returns - and the ability to construct a trading strategy that exploits the effect.
Elise Payzan-LeNestour and James Doran, UNSW | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Forum CE Library - over 660 CE/CPD hours
Complimentary for all Forum members, the Forum’s online on-demand CE Library offers over 660 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, Legislated, FMA, AFA, FPA and CIMA^® CE/CPD requirements, to name a few.
Earn CE/CPD hours

Forum CIMA CE Library - over 125 CE hours
This subset of our full 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, Legislated, FMA, etc).
Earn CIMA CE hours

Connect with me on LinkedIn
We also let my LinkedIn network know as soon as we release new articles on portfolioconstructionforum.edu.au and when registration opens for our face-to-face CE programs. If LinkedIn is more your thing than Twitter, I’d welcome you connecting. And of course, I’d welcome having an offline direct conversation with you any time.