Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Friday 12 September 2025

“With the [US] economy holding steady while AI mania is showing similarities to the dotcom boom, cutting rates now could push the market to crazier highs… It would be exactly the wrong move at the wrong time.” - Ruchir Sharma, chairman of Rockefeller International (08 Sep 2025)

All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham
P.S. Mark Your Diary! Portfolio Construction Forum Markets Summit 2026 (25 Feb 2026). For our full 2025/2026 calendar click here.

Markets

Why are financial markets shrugging at Trump’s war on the fed?
While President Donald Trump’s attack on the US Federal Reserve Board and on a sitting governor, Lisa Cook, has elicited expressions of high alarm from economists and commentators, investors have responded with one big yawn.
Barry Eichengreen, University of California | Read

Markets

Global trade is winning trump’s war on it
When it comes to tariffs, US President Donald Trump’s bark has so far proven worse than his bite. Nearly six months after he announced his ultra-high “reciprocal” tariffs, the global trading system is holding up well.
Daniel Gros, Bocconi University | Read

Strategies | Markets | Investing | Finology | Philosophy | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

Macro Matters! Time to make a move?
A complex array of issues is changing the outlook for economies and investment markets. It is time to make a move to better understand these issues so we can better manage risk and uncertainty, and design portfolios capable of improving the financial well-being of individuals.
Cheng Lei, Christopher Joye, Graeme Miller, Oliver Hartwich, Vasyl Myroshnychenko | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | Investing | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

Active investing must move to systematically scale skill
The explosion of data and advances in AI have permanently changed active investing. The alpha edge lies not in discarding skill, but in scaling it.
Nick Burt, Vinva Investment Management | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | Investing | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

Asset-based finance is private credit’s next frontier
In an era defined by rapid economic shifts and evolving banking regulation, the time to make a move is now – asset-based finance is emerging as a compelling frontier for investors.
Jason Mandinach, PIMCO | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

The heroes of US central banking
In the long history of US central banking, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stands out as a hero. His disciplined performance at this year’s Jackson Hole gathering was an extraordinary, Volcker-like act of political courage.
Stephen Roach, Yale University | Read

Markets | Finology | Philosophy | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

Investment professionals must become civilisational stewards
From the origins of Western order in the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, five interconnected crises now threatening its foundations. Our choice is simple – optimise within decline, or rebuild the foundations that made our prosperity possible.
Oliver Hartwich, The New Zealand Initiative | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

It’s time to rebalance portfolios for economic reality
Economic realities and policy shifts are diverging from market pricing, US equity valuations are at record highs but the outlook for the world’s largest economy is challenged, and the independence of the central bank is at risk. It’s time to make a move to rebalance portfolios.
Ronald Temple, Lazard | 0.25 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | Investing | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

European private credit belongs in portfolios now
Private credit is a maturing asset class globally but expanding rapidly in Europe, with spreads tending to price at a premium to their US counterparts, providing higher interest cover and lower default rates.
Stéphane Blanchoz, BNP Paribas Asset Management | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets | Finology

Research Review: Finfluencers and market efficiency
Individual investors have long responded to the public communications of well-placed, popular investment experts. This paper offers a new understanding of how the rise of “finfluencers” is reshaping the information landscape.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE | Read

Markets

The Trumping of Europe
The draft US/EU trade agreement just concluded sets a 15% tariff on most European exports to the US against a 0% reciprocal tariff. The match goes to Trump, 15 to nil.
Zaki Laidi, Sciences Po | Read

Markets | Meet The Keynote - featuring at Strategies Summit 20-21 August

Like the Roman Empire, the West risks fading into history
The urgent question facing liberal democracies is this - will the West soon be history? The answer depends on two factors: military strength and moral clarity.
Oliver Hartwich, The New Zealand Initiative | 0.25 CE | Watch, Listen

Markets

Whither the dollar, and why?
The subject at hand being so difficult, it is no surprise that almost all commentators can find some logical justification for any theory of currencies they may hold.
Woody Brock, SED | Read

Strategies | Markets

3Whats: Rhetoric to Reality
Markets seem to have grown less reactive to US President Trump’s unpredictable actions. But despite recent market calm, ongoing trade wars, economic disruption from Trump’s policies, and geopolitical tensions warrant a cautious investment strategy.
Wayne Fitzgibbon, Thinking Differently | Read

Investing | Philosophy

Research Review: Choosing pension fund investment consultants
This paper provides a great summary of the role played by asset consultants and the existing literature on asset consulting (including why they’re fired).
Ron Bird, ANU & Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.50 CE | 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

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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.