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 Friday 02 May 2014

The independent professional development service for investment portfolio construction practitioners

G'day

I trust you had an enjoyable Easter/ANZAC holiday period (and caught up on some back issues of Fodder as suggested!). In this week's Fodder, Nouriel Roubini explains why the biggest geopolitical risk of our times is not tensions in the Middle East or the risk of Cold War II but, rather, the challenge of sustaining the peaceful character of China's rise. Tim Farrelly's white paper examines the long-term return drivers four common alternative assets (be wary of asset classes that have been subject to a substantial increase in inflows). PortfolioConstruction Forum Member and self confessed quant geek, Michael Furey, analyses absolute return funds on offer in Australia, finding just 16 have met the definition to date.  Angela Ashton reviews Towers Watson's compendium on global equity investing, concluding it's well worth checking your own portfolio construction philosophy against it. We all know
equity valuations are an important driver of investment return. Invesco Perpetual's Stephen Anness

shows that valuation is also an key driver of volatility. And finally, we profile the very, very popular session from Markets Summit 2014 in which all our presenters debate two critical issues for portfolios for the coming three years.
All the best for a great weekend's learning - Graham
p.s. Don't miss Symposium 2014 (20/21 May) - 12 structured CPD hours

LATEST...

Global ground zero in Asia
Long-standing historical grievances among China, Japan, Korea, India, and others remain open wounds. Why are tensions among Asia's great powers becoming more serious?
Nouriel Roubini, Roubini Global Economics
Opinion

It's time to start looking at alternative assets
It is time to start looking at alternative assets. Not because there is any pressing need to invest today, but because thorough analysis takes time and mistakes can be expensive.
Tim Farrelly, farrelly's
White Paper

Fureyous: Absolute return investing... a nice goal
It is fine to have positive returns year-in, year-out as an objective or goal. But, absolute returns should never be presented as an expectation, as disappointment is inevitable.
Michael Furey, Delta Research & Advisory
Opinion

Global equity investing: Insights into a better portfolio
Towers Watson's compendium of insights into global equity investing contains useful insights about issues many portfolio construction practitioners face every day.
Angela Ashton, PortfolioConstruction Forum
Research

Why valuation really matters
Valuation is not just an important driver of investment returns but also of investment volatility.
Stephen Anness, Invesco Perpetual Opinion

Markets Summit 2014 Investment Advisory Board Meeting
Our Markets Summit faculty debated two critical issues arising from Unconventional Monetary Policy; for the coming two to three years, to substantially overweight DM vs EM Equities in portfolios and substantially overweight Short vs Long Duration Bonds.
Markets Summit 2014 Investment Advisory Board
Resources
* Rated "very good" by delegates, this was the "must see" session of the program!

Other good reads
Pseudo-mathematics and financial charlatanism - highlights the perils of backtesting. Fund managers commonly use backtesting in the marketing of new strategies. This study shows that many unwittingly engage in "overfitting", leading them to overstate the promise of their offerings.

RECENTLY...

Active versus passive
The active versus passive debate was recently given a boost when Warren Buffet suggested in his annual letter that most investors are better off investing passively.
Dominic McCormick, Select Asset Management
1 comment |  | 
Opinion

The Fed's exit strategy
The Fed’s published policy on how it will exit QE is fairly old. Overall, though, there is not a huge overhang of securities that the Fed needs to sell to exit.
Dr Robert Gay, Fenwick Advisers
Opinion

Investing for retirement: the defined contribution challenge
Target date funds are becoming the workhorse for DC plans but there are problems with the approach. This paper offers a portfolio construction framework to overcome them.
Ben Inker & Martin Tarlie, GMO
White Paper

Divorcing your debt benchmark
Divorcing your debt benchmark and adopting more unconstrained approach to debt investing and offering degrees of freedom to the portfolio manager is the new "core".
Lisa Kim, PIMCO
Opinion

Emerging markets on trial
Against a backdrop of currency slides, yield spikes and chronic equity underperformance, we invited our EM experts to defend their asset class against three charges.
BlackRock
Investment Institute | 
White Paper

Quantitative squeezing - differentiation in EM Investing
Our Markets Summit faculty debated two critical portfolio construction issues arising from Unconventional Monetary Policy.
Kathryn Koch, Goldman Sachs Asset Management
Resources
* Rated "very good" by Markets Summit 2014 program delegates

PLUS...

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