Content Submission Guidelines

Last updated February 2020

In addition to publishing content created by the Portfolio Construction Forum team, the Forum welcomes submissions of high quality, content from third parties that meet the following guidelines.

FORMAT

We curate and publish third party content in a range of formats:

• blog-style perspectives (written or video)

• analytic articles; and,

• white/research papers

SUBJECT MATTER

We curate and publish third party content that falls within one or more of our five knowledge domains - philosophy, markets, strategies, investing and finology.

Please note, we don’t publish short-term investment market commentary, as there is any amount of that information available to our Members through other sources. We do publish content that discusses medium- to long-term investment market issues.

EXAMPLES

Blog-style written opinion:

• Wanted: A counter-populism strategy

• The banks at risk of an Aldi moment - sell!

Blog-style video opinion:

• Active managers require three ingredients for success

• Engaging investors' long-term view is our moral duty

White papers:

• Monetary reform - looking in the wrong places

• Understanding "founder's mentality" to generate outperformance - this is an excellent example of an opinion that is clearly arguing one of the firm’s key philosophies, but in an analytical way i.e. using evidence to support the opinion.

• Variable withdrawals improve retirement outcomes

• Behavioral biases and the hierarchy of retirement needs

CRITERIA FOR CE ACCREDITATION

From the content submitted, we assess and accredit some for CE hours, where it meets the following criteria:

• Robust – analytical, evidenced-based argument;

• Timeless - something that would still be valid in 3 to 5 years;

• Additive - must advance knowledge, and must add to what is already in our multi-media learning platform;

• Relevant - must be within our five knowledge domains (philosophy, markets, strategies, investing, finology);

• Measurable – must be suitable for application of our accreditation metrics (a combination of word count, structure and critical thinking elements).

EXAMPLES

• Impact investing in the context of a diversified portfolio

• Use Active share to assess management fees

• Not all Australian income funds are fit for purpose

• Revealing a client's true preferences

• How much risk do equities contribute to diversified strategies?

• Setting a retirement spending policy

• Helicopter money – really?

TECHNICAL SPEC

• Content must be free of direct or indirect discussion or reference to a particular firm’s products or processes (e.g. that portray a firm’s fund or investment process in any way including as a “representative fund” or other generically labeled representation in the presentation, or using data for one of a firm’s funds or strategies in a graph or table);

• Content must not have been previously widely distributed in another manner to Portfolio Construction Forum’s Members.

• Content submitted should be written in a formal, quasi academic and impersonal style – that is, written in the third person with no “we”, “our”, “you” type language. Any such language will be edited out in the publishing process, but if too prevalent will preclude the content being published.

• Content submitted should be based on quality analysis/foundations – while we don’t take a position on any aspect of portfolio construction, we will only publish content that, is in our opinion, based on fair and reasonable analysis.

• There is no minimum or maximum length for content submitted.

• All graphs/tables/charts must be properly sourced e.g. “Source: RBA data 30 June 2016. Author’s own analysis”.

• All indices and data series presented in graphs/tables/charts must be clearly described below the graph so it is clear to the reader what data was used.

• The title of each graph/table/chart must include the exact time period of the data/analysis shown.

• Content should be supplied in MS word ideally, or an unlocked .pdf will usually suffice.

PUBLISHING PROCESS

• Content submitted is reviewed and edited at our Managing Editor’s sole discretion, and is not be provided back to the author's firm for review prior to publication. This sounds worse than it is – content that meets the above spec usually requires very little editing.

• Content is laid up in the Portfolio Construction Forum look and feel (not in the author's firm’s brand) with full attribution (author name, company, photo, short bio and link to your firm’s site). Our members are more likely to read content presented in our look and feel (because of the implied third party endorsement).

• Content Providers retain ownership of the intellectual property that is legitimately theirs within the content published. The Publisher solely retains a limited license to publish a Content Provider's content on Portfolio Construction Forum’s site.

• The content is then published on portfolioconstructionforum.edu.au, behind our Member log in wall, for all Members to view. Content remains on the site and searchable at the Managing Editor’s sole discretion.