Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | 20 June 2025

“We have a man that just refuses to lower the Fed rate, just refuses to do it… I do it every way in the book. I’m nasty, I’m nice. Nothing works. He’s like a stupid person.” - US President Donald Trump (18 June 2025)

All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham

Strategies | Markets | Investing | Finology | Philosophy

Strategies Summit 2025 “Time to make a move?”
AEST Wed-Thu Wed-Thu 20-21 August 2025 | 12+ CE/CPD hrs | A$395+GST (Practitioner)
Join us in our live studio, at a Forum live site, or via our live stream | Registration opens Monday!
For much of the past four decades, the key to investing success was to stay long (and get longer!) risk assets. Crises became buying opportunities, as investors learned that western policymakers would go to almost any lengths to rescue financial markets. Even in the changed environment of 2020-2024, going with the flow was a good strategy most of the time.
But is that still the case? Central banks and politicians are constrained in their ability to support asset prices, globalisation continues to reverse, trade wars (and actual wars - cold and hot) are intensifying. A toxic brew of low growth and sticky inflation threatens economies, markets and asset prices. It’s crunch time for multi-asset, multi-manager portfolio design. Are the portfolio construction strategies that have served us well in the past still appropriate? Time to make a move?
Strategies Summit 2025 will challenge and refresh your portfolio construction thinking by debating contemporary and emerging portfolio construction strategies to help you build better quality portfolios.

Markets

How AI will disrupt big tech
There is growing public alarm about how generative AI might obliterate industries and professions. What’s often overlooked is that the first major victim will undoubtedly be the technology sector itself.
Charles Ferguson, Davidovs Venture Collective | Read

Markets

The sources of global economic uncertainty
The recent surge in government bond yields raises a critical question - should corporations lock in debt at current interest rates before they rise further?
Dambisa Moyo, Versaca Investments | Read

Markets | Philosophy

Backgrounder: Thinking Differently About Markets
For the past 30 years, a revolution has been underway in how investment markets and economies should be viewed and understood. This Backgrounder introduces the key elements of this revolution – termed Complexity Economics – and explains the implications for understanding investment market behaviour and constructing portfolios.
Wayne Fitzgibbon, Thinking Differently | 1.50 CE | Read

Finology | Philosophy

Research Review: Moral courage
In an industry saturated with greenwashing, woke-washing, whitewashing, and other appeals to our ethical sensibilities, moral courage is a critical virtue for upholding high ethical standards and building societal trust.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE (Ethics) | Read

Investing | Editor’s Pick!

Research Spotlight: Talaria Global Equity
This Research Spotlight focuses on the Talaria Global Equity strategy, a value-biased global equities exposure executed through the use of exchange traded options.
Portfolio Construction Forum | 0.50 CE | Watch

Markets

Mercantilism isn’t all bad, but Trump’s version is the worst
Excellent article, and some key points are made. In the long-term economics will dictate asset sector returns and stock-picking returns…
Mark Hayden, Hayden Bourne Financial Services | Read

Strategies | Markets

Thinking Differently About Markets
Embracing complexity economics to better understand how markets really work
The Thinking Differently About Markets subscription service enables a deeper and more realistic understanding of economic and financial dynamics, empowering greater clarity and agility in portfolio construction.
Subscribe and join a Community of Practice that recognises that the traditional tools and theories of economic orthodoxy are not sufficient, and embraces complexity economics - in which the economy is more akin to an ecosystem, the brain, or the internet than to the mechanistic models of traditional theory. Thinking Differently About Markets will help you create robust portfolios by deepening your understanding of how economies and markets really work. Find out more!

Strategies | Markets | Investing | Philosophy

Short Course: Mastering private debt investing
Examining the unique characteristics that make private debt a compelling investment.
Private debt has grown in popularity as an alternative source of debt financing, with the asset class tripling in size since 2008. Curated and produced by Portfolio Construction Forum, and led by private debt investing subject matter expert, Andrew Lockhart, this self-paced, two-hour online short course equips you with the expertise to navigate private debt investment confidently across diverse market conditions.
Metrics & Portfolio Construction Forum | 2.00 CE | Enrol

Finology | Philosophy | * Premium *

Behavioural Finance: Investment decision-making short course
Led by behavioural finance expert, Herman Brodie, this online, on-demand course completed at your own pace will help you identify, analyse and evaluate the principal human preferences that influence decision-making in situations of uncertainty, so you can recognise and identify these preferences in others, to improve investment decision-making.
Herman Brodie | 8.00 CE (incl 1.00 ethics) | Enrol

Markets

Mercantilism isn’t all bad, but Trump’s version is the worst
When economists celebrate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations next year, President Trump’s mercantilism will constitute an incongruous backdrop.
Dani Rodrik, Harvard University | Read

Markets

Is the "old world order” really gone for good?
I have significantly rethought the likely implications of the Trump administration’s impact on the world’s economies and polities. I am more optimistic.
Woody Brock, SED | Read

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Markets Summit 2025

Mind the gap(s) between market perception and investing reality
As we progress through the Trumpification of markets, the political and information prism through which we view the world will help us mind the gap(s) between market perception and investing reality.
Jonathan Pain, The Pain Report | 0.25 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Markets Summit 2025

Caution - we must mind the gap(s)!
Near- and medium-term gaps in current market narratives and perceptions lead to a simple conclusion - it is time for caution.
Wayne Fitzgibbon, Thinking Differently | 0.25 CE | Watch, Listen

Investing | Finology

Research Review: Private equity - buyer beware
Private equity is promoted as providing returns several per cent higher than investing in public equity markets. These two papers reveal the true returns that private equity delivers to investors, identifying the real winners (the managers).
Ron Bird, ANU & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Read

Markets

Trump’s misguided plan to weaken the dollar
With President Trump’s tariff war in full swing, attention is turning to the “Mar-a-Lago Accord”, a plan to weaken the dollar. Clever as it might be, but it is based on a flawed diagnosis.
Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University | Read

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Markets Summit 2025

Minding the market gap(s) is essential to MAMMI expertise
Understanding the drivers of and outlook for the markets is essential to multi-asset, multi-manager investing (MAMMI). However, MAMMI is full of traps. As the saying goes “It’s simple, it’s just not easy!”.
Dan Farmer & Michael Furey | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Markets Summit 2025

Quality private credit minds the default gap
As the private credit sector grows, it faces increasing media scrutiny, making a manager’s approach to disclosure of default rate and causes an increasingly important consideration for investors.
Andrew Lockhart, Metrics Credit Partners | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Markets Summit 2025

Forget the gap - mind the private equity chasm in portfolios
In mid-market Australian private equity, where inefficiencies and hands-on value creation thrive, outsized returns are being captured beyond the public eye.
Ed Bigazzi, Five V Capital | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Finology | Philosophy

Research Review: Moral judgments
Ethical standards and codes serve as guiding principles for professionals - but the application is rarely straightforward. This paper reviews recent literature on moral judgment and the behavioural implications.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE (Ethics!) | Read

Forum CE Library - over 1,000 CE/CPD hours
Complimentary for all Forum members, the Forum’s online on-demand CE Library offers over 800 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, Legislated (AU)/FAAA, FMA and CIMA^® CE/CPD requirements, to name just a few.
Earn CE/CPD hours

Forum CIMA CE Library - over 170 CE hours
This subset of our full 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, Legislated (AU)/FAAA, FMA etc).
Earn CIMA CE hours

Connect with us on LinkedIn
We let my LinkedIn network know as soon as we release new articles on portfolioconstructionforum.edu.au and when registration opens for our face-to-face CE programs. And of course, I’d welcome having an offline direct conversation with you any time.