Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Saturday 18 October 2025

“Make no mistake, this is China versus the world. They have put these unacceptable [rare earth] export controls on the entire world. China is a command-and-control economy and we and our allies will neither be commanded nor controlled.” - Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury (15 October 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

Will AI pay off the West’s debts?
There is no question that AI is changing the global economy at unprecedented speed, propelling asset markets higher. But will it rescue rich countries from intensifying debt pressures? No one should bet the farm on it.
Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University | Read

Markets | Investing

Money will not be revolutionised
The future of money and payment systems will be characterised by evolution, not some radical crypto revolution. One way or another, it will remain within the state’s purview.
Nouriel Roubini, Brunello Rosa | Read

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

It’s time to rethink valuations in your core
Investors should challenge what value means in today’s evolving market and think pragmatically about how value co-exists alongside other accretive factors, thereby uncovering opportunities that challenge the traditional definition.
Vihari Ross, Antipodes Partners | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Portfolios with high idiosyncratic risk thrive in changing markets
It’s time to move global equities portfolio construction and stock selection with the corporate life cycle - for alpha, balance, and consistency.
Thomas Gander, Life Cycle Investment Partners | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Don’t be ASX-constrained, make private equity your next move
Capital and companies are shifting away from public markets, as private markets have demonstrated return outperformance (with less volatility) over a long period of time.
Justin England, Five V Capital | 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 failure of anti-austerity populism
Partly due to post-pandemic inflation but more fundamentally because real interest rates appear to have normalised, the free-lunch logic underlying anti-austerity economics has been exposed for what it always was - a dangerous illusion.
Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University | Read

Markets | Philosophy

3Whats: Win or Lose
When it comes to what to do about the current daunting range of uncertainties, consider this simple question: How much of your wealth or investable capital would you be willing to wager on the toss of a coin?
Wayne Fitzgibbon, Thinking Differently | Read

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

Investment professionals must be civilisational stewards - Q&A
Picking back up from the inaugural Portfolio Construction Forum da Vinci Lecture, Michael Stutchbury and Oliver Hartwich discuss the five crises threatening the foundations of the Western order and the practical implications for Australia and NZ.
Oliver Hartwich, Michael Stutchbury | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Systematic investing will reshape the design of portfolios
In today’s markets, the challenge isn’t ignorance – it’s bias. The edge lies in discovering what’s happening, but in discerning what truly matters. Now is the time for systematic investing.
Benjamin Leung, Macquarie Asset Management | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

It’s time to quadruple your emerging markets exposure
Emerging markets account for over half the world’s population and a third of global GDP, yet they remain glaringly underrepresented in most investment portfolios. Today’s low valuations could be the springboard for a powerful rebound.
Saurav Das, Orbis Investment Advisory | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Forum CE Library - over 1,000 CE/CPD hours
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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.