It would have been hard to pick a better time to bring together 500 of Australia's leading portfolio construction professionals for the 2007 PortfolioConstruction Conference. It came hard on the heels of the 30 June deadline for people to make a one-time, post-tax contribution to their super of up to $1 million - it is possible that as the attendees listened to high-level briefings on the global economy, more cash was sitting in advisory accounts waiting to be deployed than at any time in recent history - and then, during the week of the conference, the US subprime meltdown shaved 6% off the value of global equities, making caution and additional information seem ...