Bonds are negatively correlated to equities – so they make a great portfolio diversifier despite their low yields, right?. Wrong.

"The Hedge Fund Mirage" shows investors would've been much better off in US T-Bills over the past decade. We look at hedge fund association AIMA's "comprehensive rebuttal".

Obama is back in, attention has turned to the fiscal cliff. Can we just ignore the economy and get on with investing?

How governments will reduce debt is the subject of considerable debate. One option seems most likely.

Is gold the ultimate currency? How do we feel about a currency that lost 79% purchasing power from 1980 to 2000?

A growing chorus of (largely offshore) commentators has Australia falling into a pronounced slump. Are we on the edge of a precipice? No.

Seven areas where thinking outside the box may lead to different portfolio construction decisions.

Many practitioners want to manage their clients’ asset allocation more proactively (not tactically!) but find the implementation issues confusing...

This one just won't go away. Central to this is the idea that the limiting factor behind bank lending is enough cash to lend out. It is just wrong...

Building debt portfolios used to be easy. But it’s much harder now. These days, the debt side of portfolios must be absolutely secure and should designed as three buckets...

Mssrs Henry, Murray and Tanner are successful in their fields. But none has a background in financial planning or investment management. It shows.

The debt side of portfolios used to be the easy part of portfolio construction, but not these days. In this Critical Issues Forum session at the 2011 PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference, Tim Farrelly outlines a systematic and practical process for constructing the debt side of portfolios and shows how considerable value can be added and demonstrated clearly to investors...

Australian residential property does not behave like other investment classes. Why? And what does that mean for forecasting returns?

Is this the time to be buying or selling international equities?

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...

It's with considerable trepidation that I take on the world's central bankers who are protecting the world against the evils of deflation...

Despite an appalling 2008, the hedge fund industry spin continues, with managers comparing hedge fund returns to equity market performance. But what if we make a sensible comparison – against diversified funds? With the tide now out, the myths are laid bare...

Risk profiling is generally agreed to be an important part of the financial planning process – and, yet, it is something that generates large measures of skepticism, controversy and, from time to time, attention from the regulators. Ensuring a portfolio is within the bounds of both a client's risk tolerance and risk capacity is critical - just getting one right is not good enough...

Credit failure season is upon us. Most recently, subprime mortgages, Bridgecorp and Basis Capital have been the stars of the show. Before them, it was Westpoint. Like cockroaches, you can be sure that for every one that rears it's head, there are dozens more lurking just out of sight. The critical issue is not whether advisers avoid credit failure, but how they manage it...

If you invest even a small proportion of your portfolios in non-Investment Grade fixed income securities, you will from time to time experience a default – it’s an issue of when (and how much), rather than if. This session shows you a simple method to better manage credit risk in your portfolios...