Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Friday 31 October 2025

“I always say that it’s a fact that we don’t make decisions in advance. But I’m saying something in addition here: that [a December US rate cut] is not to be seen as a foregone conclusion – in fact far from it.” - US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell (29 October 25)

All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham
P.S. Registration opens next week! Portfolio Construction Forum Markets Summit 2026 (25 Feb 2026). For our full 2026 calendar click here.

Markets

Profiles in weakness at the Trump-Xi meeting
While most people regard the Sino-American rivalry as a new cold war, the truth is that both countries are tightly constrained. Today’s cold warriors are being pushed toward some sort of truce.
Harold James, Princeton University | Read

Markets | Investing

Now is the time to revisit listed global real estate
There’s been a slow-moving dynamic playing out within global real estate which is setting up the sector for multi-period outperformance. This dynamic is widespread but acute in some sectors.
Justin Blaess, Quay Global Investors | Watch, Listen

Strategies | Markets | Investing

Private credit is expanding from lending to asset-based solutions
Private credit is entering a new phase of maturity, expanding beyond direct lending into a broader spectrum of asset-based finance. For portfolio constructors seeking stability and yield - it’s time to make a move.
Nicole Drapkin, Blue Owl Capital | Watch, Listen

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

Asset class opportunities 2025/26
Our panel explores three asset class issues that it’s time to make a move on - including private markets, Australian private credit and global listed infrastructure.
Brendan McCurdy, Andrew Lockhart, Warryn Robertson, Sean Henaghan | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Portfolio design opportunities
Our panel explores three portfolio deign issues that it’s time to make a move on - building bespoke portfolios, taking a Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) to alternatives, and including emerging markets in portfolios again.
Peter Gunning, Deanne Baker, Piers Bolger, Mirko Cugura | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies

Portfolio Compass
An efficient, effective tool to better connect portfolios to client objectives
Portfolio Compass enables you to easily and confidently identify robust asset allocations that can deliver on required investment objectives. Developed in association with Evergreen Consultants, you can rapidly analyse the risk and return characteristics of a portfolio’s existing asset allocation and analyse options to adjust it, create and monitor customised asset allocations for individual clients, and set practice-wide asset allocations based on your firm’s investment philosophy and client risk profiles. The highly visual interface enhances transparency and clarity of communication with clients about their portfolios.
Portfolio Compass will deepen your understanding and control of the most important part of the investment process – the asset allocation of a portfolio. Find out more!

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

Crockpot: American exceptionalism means we don’t have to worry
There is something special about the American entrepreneurial spirit that makes the American economy and companies exceptional. But the notion that this means we don’t have to worry about valuations? It’s nuts.
Tim Farrelly, Delta Portfolios | Read

Strategies | Investing | Finology | Philosophy

Rich Pickings: James McAlevey
Rich Pickings explores the investment beliefs and philosophies of prominent professional investors. In this episode, I’m in conversation with London-based, absolute return fixed income investor, James McAlevey, BNP Paribas Asset Management…
Graham Rich, Portfolio Construction Forum | Watch, Listen

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

You don’t have to take additional risk to achieve higher returns
With parts of the private credit market under pressure from rising impairments and liquidity constraints, investment-grade credit provides a way to access equity-like returns without taking on additional risk or sacrificing liquidity.
Roy Keenan, Yarra Capital Management | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Make a move to absolute return strategies in global equities
An absolute return, long-short approach to global equities investing offers the freedom to invest in the best long-term opportunities whatever they are, turning time and disruption into a competitive advantage.
Lev Margolin, System Capital | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

Strategies | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

It’s time to move from Outsource to In-source
The traditional model of outsourcing investment management to an OCIO is reaching its practical limits. The OCIO relationship with the investment adviser needs to evolve to a deeply integrated partnership.
Jamie Lewin, UBS Asset Management | 0.50 CE | Watch, Listen

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

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.