PIMCO founder and co-CIO, Bill Gross, has recently appending the even drearier modifier "minus" to his "new normal" moniker. He explains why, and the implications for those building portfolios...
2011 was a watershed year for the New Zealand financial advisory industry, as the regulation rubber hit the road. Our financialalert Person of the Year 2011 stood out for his enthusiastic, energetic leadership at a time when many advisers were struggling with the additional demands the introduction of regulation has brought as well as the challenging market environment...
We might wish our clients’ investment journeys will invariably be beautiful experiences - but we know that things will turn ugly from time to time. How do we prepare our clients for the ugly times? What do they need to know?
A soft landing in China is beginning to look like wishful thinking. The investment v consumption imbalance has only worsened...
It's 10 years since Jim O'Neill - a regular speaker at PortfolioConstruction Forum - coined the term 'BRIC'. These BBC podcasts look at what's ahead for the BRIC economies...
With regulation taking hold, many adviser practices are simply not as profitable to operate as they use to be - and some may be asking themselves if this is a good time to exit. But holding out for another five years may well pay off...
Most emerging countries were able to counter an economic slowdown in developed countries in 2008-09. Can this scenario be repeated?
We asked the fund research houses - how much (if any) of an international equities allocation should be hedged, assuming a 10-year investment timeframe?
Will the Euro exist in ten years? Why doesn't Germany leave the EMU? How will Euro confidence improve? What structural changes must occur in Australia? Do free markets work? Will QE3 actually help? Has the world reached the limits of GDP growth?
Conference 2011 helped delegates better understand the key macro AND micro issues and what they mean for investor portfolios. This Resources Kit features videos, presentations, papers and podcasts for the 36 sessions featuring more than 40 investment experts...
The Conference Masterclass is an optional one-day, classroom/workshop-style program presented by selected subject matter experts. The emphasis is on an active-learning environment featuring small, high-quality peer group interaction where in-depth Socratic debate and active discussion is encouraged (indeed, expected!).
We asked the fund research houses - should all portfolios be ‘overweight’ to emerging market equities? If so, overweight to what?
This white paper contends that investment in emerging market sovereign debt continues to look attractive and investors should carefully consider adding emerging market sovereign bonds to their asset allocations and revisit the proportional weighting of the asset class as it continues to mature...
We asked the fund houses: What are the top 5 quant analytics practitioners should always consider and why?
There are three key reasons why it is prudent to reduce commodities allocations and redistribute some of that allocation into equities - and in particular, western equities...
We asked: What, in your firm's view, is one of the big challenges facing the Australian funds research industry at present?
A concise update on the challenges for global fixed income markets over the next six months, including the US and European debt situation, and rising inflation in emerging markets...
Australian residential property does not behave like other investment classes. Why? And what does that mean for forecasting returns?
We asked the research houses: What are the key risks your firm assesses when rating funds / products / capabilities - and why?
The Academy Winter Seminar 2011 debates the following three topics in a Socratic learning environment: How to build a framework for assessment of niche exposures in a portfolio; How to incorporate value strategies in equity portfolios; and, How to analyse investment scenarios and their implications for portfolios...
Post 1 July, New Zealand's financial advisers will be held to far greater account for the portfolios they build for clients - and this comes at a time when global investment markets are more volatile than at any other time in the past 20 years, and likely to remain so for years. Investment Symposium 2011 will help you better understand the pillars for building better quality investor portfolios...
How should we think about risk in portfolios? I put that question to a cross-section of prominent advisers, authors and academics. Their answers encompassed diverse opinions and underscored how crucial that question is to the investment process...
We asked the research houses: What asset classes / product types does your firm include under the 'alternatives' label? Why? How many strategies/funds do you rate in each?
Is this the time to be buying or selling international equities?
Fueling fears of a China bubble is the rapid rise in prices of its residential property market in many of its key cities. Structurally, however, while residential house prices may be vulnerable near term, over the long term, the uptrend would appear to be underpinned...
The Academy Autumn Seminar 2011 will debate the following three topics in a Socratic learning environment: How to judge whether a manager will or has added value; Is investing post-retirement different?; and, How to spot global trends and draw investment inferences from them...
The question of whether China is a bubble is critical for strategic asset allocation, for the outlook for emerging markets, for the future strength of global economic growth, and in determining how much longer the commodity super cycle is likely to continue...
The final session of the Markets Summit 2011 saw our specialists return to stage for a vigorous debate about the prospects for their competing asset classes, and the implications for constructing portfolios, before Inquisitor Tim Farrelly summed up the day's key takeouts...
Concern about investment bubbles is at unprecedented levels. Markets Summit 2011 helped delegates decide what is and what is not, a bubble - and what that means for constructing investor portfolios...
We asked the research houses: Of the 15,000 managed funds on offer in the Australian market, how do you determine which ones you will rate?
As suggested in the last Pain Report, it looks like The House of Saud is prepared to stand and fight with Bahrain's House of Al-Khalifa. We are rapidly approaching a critical decision point - will they or won't they? My view, very regrettably, is that the Saudis will intervene in Bahrain...
This one has been around for a while now. We have seen how the sub-prime lending crisis brought the US and European banking systems to their knees. The story goes that the Australian banking system is also a time bomb waiting to happen...
The rise in prices for natural resources and the associated planned increase in Australian-based capacity to supply key commodities is one of the largest economic events in our history. I will structure my remarks around four questions: What do we know from previous booms? What do we know about this one? What don't we know? How should we respond?
The tectonic plates of the Arab world have ruptured and the geopolitical fault lines that have shaped and defined the region for sixty years have shifted inexorably. What does that mean for investing?
What are the broader perspectives on the implications of the Egyptian crisis for markets and investors?
Inspired by the overthrow of the Tunisian president, demonstrations began in Egypt on 25 January and the rest, as they say, is history. Before we attempt to predict what the consequences will indeed be, let us first understand what we are actually seeing and why...
While the original Markowitz formulations might not be perfect, the problems in client portfolios during the last market meltdown can be traced to naive inputs...
It's with considerable trepidation that I take on the world's central bankers who are protecting the world against the evils of deflation...