Christine Lagarde will soon succeed Mario Draghi as president of the ECB. She is taking the reins at precisely the right moment for Europe to make the changes needed to avoid a second lost decade.
In the increasingly intense strategic and economic competition between Washington and Beijing, it's naive to think Australia can just sit on the sidelines.
Portfolio construction is multi-faceted and should be iterative. Five key components provide a framework to design quality portfolios to meet clients' objectives.
Are markets efficient? Recent research suggests not, finding media impacts information dissemination, and mispricing explains the value premium.
Hindsight has taught us the importance of active core bond funds as an insurance policy and now is the time to consider expanding your investable universe as the secular need for income intensifies.
There are several geo-economic games of chicken playing out. In each case, failure to compromise would lead to a collision, most likely followed by a global recession and financial crisis.
For most of the last 10 years, the world's major central banks have been creating significant amounts of cheap money, inflating several bubbles. Those bubbles are beginning to burst.
Climate change has moved faster than most thought possible. There will be exciting investment opportunities in companies focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Human beliefs, biases and behaviours are central to the behaviour of financial markets, causing financial and economic instability to persist.
Few clients have the 20-year horizon required for today’s strategically-oriented models to become consistent with suggested outcomes, such as CPI+4%. This builds in a structural mismatch.
Policymakers are coming to realise that it is neither wise nor feasible to rely constantly on central banks for economic-policy support. The case for shifting the burden from monetary to fiscal policy is becoming more apparent.
On the positive side - still - is the US consumer, the household sector. On the negative side is synchronised global industrial deceleration, and markets underestimating the negative trajectory of the US/China relationship. Investors need to avoid chasing momentum in equity markets and yield and duration in fixed income markets.
What strategy should a rational investor, completely free of constraints, take to preserve wealth while making modest long-term gains? To do so will not be easy over the next two decades.
An antidote for a low-rate environment is investing in companies enjoying the benefits of mega-trends, global shifts that are likely to boost demand for the products of a firm over the long term.
Although influenced by logical factors, changes in investment markets are often irrational and illogical. A whole-brain approach to seeking alpha is necessary to win in the investment game.
Trump's administration is flailing at antiquated perceptions of the Old China that only compound the problems it claims to be addressing. Financial markets are starting to get a sense that something is awry.
To succeed within the ever-shifting context in which investment decisions are made, investors should adopt a multi-lens approach. Context matters, and siloed thinking can be detrimental.
With bond prices going parabolic in the past few weeks, once again market participants are wondering whether the bond market is in a bubble.
What's new with our continuing education, accreditation and certification programs.
Media coverage of Portfolio Construction Forum's continuing education and certification programs...