Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Friday 03 September 2021
“It may be hard to admit – to yourself or to others – that you don’t know what the macro future holds, but in areas entailing great uncertainty, agnosticism is probably wiser than self-delusion.” - Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, in his July 2021 memo to clients.
All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham
P.S. Register now for the Finology Summit 2021 “Behavioural FINance & investor psychOLOGY”. Attend at a hosted live-site, or via livestream and earn 7-11 CE/CPD hours. More info

Markets

Back to the seventies?
With the US’s disastrous exit from Afghanistan, the parallels between the 2020s and the 1970s just keep growing. Has a sustained period of high inflation just become much more likely?
Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University | Read

Markets

The stagflation threat is real
Demand and supply dynamics could lead to 1970s-style stagflation (rising inflation amid a recession) and eventually even to a severe debt crisis.
Nouriel Roubini, Roubini Macro Associates | Read

Philosophy | Markets | As seen at Strategies Conference 2021 last week

Markets are the means, not the end
All markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. We must rethink the relationship between market and civil society to return to a more secure and stable economic plane.
Raghuram Rajan, The University of Chicago | 1.00 CE | Read, Watch, Listen

Philosophy | Markets | Strategies | Finology | As seen at Strategies Conference 2021 last week

Macro matters: In the end, the macro matters for portfolios
In the 1990s and 2000s, investors were largely able to ignore the macro picture. But macro forces have reawakened and matter more than ever for portfolios to succeed in meeting client goals in the years ahead.
Pippa Malmgren, Alva Devoy, Magatte Wade, Ruth Richardson | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies

Research Review: An analysis of target date funds
Target date funds first became popular as a MySuper option. Leaving aside whether target date funds are a good idea in the first place, what these two papers highlight is a lack of thought in their design.
Ron Bird, Australian National University & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Read

Markets

Article hypothesis unclear
Raghuram’s observations and comments summarise the scenario we are facing, but do not conclude with a clear direction as to what the impact of a reduction in QE support within any specific timeframe might be…
Eric Walters, Continuum Financial Planners | Read

Philosophy | Portfolio Construction Forum proudly supports The Wayside Chapel

For a safer city
Navigating even the most efficient systems is a complex task at the best of times. “If you build it, they will come” is a famously misquoted line from the movie Field of Dreams. It takes more than just setting up a system…
Jon Owen, Wayside Chapel | Read

Did you know? You can find ethics hours using our Search tool
You can use our advanced Search function to find the continuing education learning activities that most interest you, suit your learning style, and/or meet the requirements of your licensee. You can search by CE competency (e.g. Ethics hours), by the type of CE regime (ASIC, FASEA, FPA, CIMA, etc), by author, by knowledge domain (Philosophy, Markets, Strategies, Investing, Finology), by way of learning (read, watch, or listen), year or program (e.g. Strategies Conference, Markets Summit). Just click on the Search icon at the top of any page, and click the “More” button to bring up the search fields. Get searching for CE

Finology | Invitation to investment advisers

Complimentary self-assessment to benchmark your Client Care & Practice knowledge and skills
FASEA requires that financial advisers continually improve their client care and practice knowledge and skills - doing so makes obvious business sense, as well. Our new Finology Benchmarking Indices (FBI) self assessment tool helps you benchmark your investing biases, beliefs and behaviours versus peers, to further empower your “client care and practice” knowledge and skills. It’s complimentary to our members who give investment advice, while we continue to develop it.
Portfolio Construction Forum | 0.50 CE | Take the FBI self-assessment

Finology

Finology Summit 2021 “Behavioural FINance and investor psychOLOGY”
AEDT Wed 13 Oct 2021
Established in 2016, Finology Summit is THE behavioural finance (“fin”) and investment psychology (“ology”) program of the year. The program features an exceptional Faculty of experts from around the world, each offering their best high conviction ideas on behavioural finance and/or investor psychology, and the investment implications. Finology knowledge and skills help us better identify and understand how our own and other people’s different investing biases, beliefs and behaviours impact investment markets and portfolio construction practices - and therefore, investment outcomes - to enable better quality investor portfolios.
Attend live in-studio, at a hosted live-site, or via livestream | 7-11 CE | Register now!

Markets | As seen at Strategies Conference 2021 last week

The dangers of endless quantitative easing
Inflation readings in the US have shot up in recent months. At the same time, stock markets are flirting with all-time highs. Something in all this does not add up.
Raghuram Rajan, University of Chicago Booth School of Business | 1 comment | Read

Markets | As seen at Strategies Conference 2021 last week

Five reasons inflation will be permanently higher
Starting in mid to late 2022, five structural changes will begin to kick in that will drive inflation to between 4% and 6% in the years following 2022. These changes will impact inflation for decades.
Woody Brock, SED | Read

Philosophy | Strategies | As seen at July’s All Things Considered Zoominar

Portfolio control is shifting back to a centralised model
With several catalysts impacting on the Australian advice landscape, we are seeing a resurgence back to centrally developed investment portfolio construction solutions - but the approach differs to history.
David Hutchison, NMG Consulting | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Investing

Research Review: Does SRI do good?
Many research papers address the investment performance of sustainable investing - few have investigated whether this form of investing actually achieves the intended good. Two papers address that gap.
Ron Bird, Australian National University & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Read

Finology | As seen at July’s All Things Considered Zoominar

To improve client discovery, we must focus more on self-awareness
Self-awareness has been hailed as one of the most important meta-skills of the 21st century. In an investment advice context, both advisers and clients benefit from engaging in activities that promote its development.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets | Investing

Clarification
The latest attestation from Circle (USDC) shows they hold 61% in cash and breaks down the remainder…
Hadley Rich, Portfolio Construction Forum | Read

Markets

Central banking, fast and slow
How transitory is today’s inflation? One camp has a surprisingly strong conviction that the current uptick in inflation will sharply reverse itself. Others, including me, are not so sure.
Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz | Read

Markets | Investing

The stablecoin illusion
The stability of stablecoins is an illusion. They are unlikely to replace Federal Reserve money, unlikely to revolutionise finance, and unlikely to realise the dreams of their libertarian enthusiasts.
Barry Eichengreen, University of California | 1 comment | Read

Markets

The Long View: Waiting for a pullback?
A period of slower, yet still robust, economic and earnings growth will be powerful enough to elongate the current bull market. Long-term investors should take advantage of any market pullback.
Jeff Schulze, ClearBridge Investments | 0.50 CE | Read

Markets | Finology

Research Review: Narrative economics and activist short selling
Activist short sellers have received increasing attention - and notoriety - in recent years. This paper adopts the lens of narrative economics to reveal useful insights into the dynamics of activist short selling.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE | Read

Strategies | Editor’s Pick!

The big picture of longevity planning
During accumulation, the concept of portfolio longevity is quite meaningless. Eventually, peak-wealth is achieved and withdrawals exceed investment gains. Managing portfolio longevity becomes critical.
Moshe Milevsky, York University | 0.50 CE | Watch

Forum CE Library - over 620 CE/CPD accredited learning resources
Complimentary for all Forum members, the Forum’s online on-demand CE Library offers over 620 CE/CPD hours of accredited learning resources, to help members meet the CE/CPD requirements of 20 governing bodies (regulators, associations, and institutes) including ASIC, APRA, FASEA, FMA, AFA, FPA and CIMA^® CE/CPD requirements, to name a few.
Earn CE/CPD hours

Forum CIMA CE Library - over 96 CE hours
This subset of the full Forum CE Library features just those learning resources that are accredited for CIMA CE hours, so CIMA certificants can more easily find learning resources to meet their recertification obligation (at the same time as meeting the CE/CPD requirements of other governing bodies e.g. ASIC, APRA, FASEA, FMA, etc).
Earn CIMA CE hours

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