Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | 04 July 2025

“There is an unsettling complacency in financial markets, as though nothing has fundamentally changed. But we are no longer in that seemingly endless post-crisis support environment where investors could believe with some confidence that policy (fiscal and monetary) was going to make it all right again.” - Adrian Blundell-Wignall, economist and former director at the OECD (01 July 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 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 | Register now!
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

The Apprentice - Federal Reserve edition
Jerome Powell’s term as Fed chair does not end until May 2026. But US President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to name the next chair early in an effort to undermine Powell.
Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University | Read

Markets

Defusing the stablecoin time bomb
The steady rise of stablecoins is setting the stage for the next financial meltdown. The Federal Reserve could defuse the time bomb by issuing a digital wallet, the mother of all stablecoins.
Yanis Varoufakis, University of Athens | Read

Strategies | Philosophy

Multi-Asset, Multi-Manager Investing expertise in Australia and New Zealand: 50 years (1975-2025) - Preface
The core principles underpinning multi-asset, multi-manager investing (MAMMI) go back thousands of years. This preface introduces why MAMMI expertise is more complex, more difficult to successfully practice and more important than ever.
Graham Rich, Portfolio Construction Forum | Read

Markets | Editor’s Pick!

The return of history is reshaping investment markets
Three investment experts offer and debate their high conviction thesis on a long-term, deep rooted structural change impacting markets over a decade or more.
Oliver Hartwich, Chris Rogers, Vikram Mansharamani | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets | Finology | Philosophy

Research Review: The replacement excuse and moral erosion
This paper examines the impact of a key feature of competitive markets on moral behaviour - the possibility that a competitor might step in and conclude the deal if a conscientious market actor forgoes a profitable business opportunity for ethical reasons.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE (Ethics) | 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

Iran is headed toward regime collapse
The 1973 Yom Kippur War and Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 led to a massive spike in oil prices that fuelled severe stagflation. This time is likely to be different for many reasons.
Nouriel Roubini, Roubini Macro Associates | Read

Markets

War and tariffs are a double shock to the world economy
The key to the near-term outlook is not US tariffs or the Iran war but their geopolitical interplay. This year’s twin shocks make a global recession look increasingly likely.
Stephen Roach, Yale University | Read

Strategies | Markets | Investing

Crockpot: Private credit is set to blow up!
While there is a grain of truth in many of the arguments supporting the claim that private credit is set to blow up, most are vastly overblown or, where correct, can easily be managed.
Tim Farrelly, farrelly’s Investment Strategy | Read

Strategies | Markets

The Inquisitor: Trade war fears are overblown - Woody Brock
While the impact of US trade tariffs will be far less than investors fear, broad portfolio diversification is paramount and indexed strategies are no longer appropriate.
Robert Huebscher, Portfolio Construction Forum | Watch

Investing

Research Review: Mandatory superannuation and consumption
Retirement is just one phase in life. This paper provides some interesting insights into mandatory superannuation and its implications for pre- and post-retirement consumption.
Ron Bird, ANU & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE | Read

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

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