Forum Fodder

Forum Fodder | Friday 28 November 2025

“The traditional link between sound policy and electoral reward has been broken. Something else now drives voter choice. The ability to connect emotionally matters more than the ability to deliver results. Welcome to the politics of feels.” - Dr Oliver Hartwich, executive director of The New Zealand Initiative & Portfolio Construction Forum Visiting Fellow 2025/26 (20 November 2025)

All the best for another week’s continuing education!
Graham
P.S. Our 2024/25 Visiting Fellow, Dr Pippa Malmgren, is live in person at UNSW at AEDT 11.00am Tuesday 02 December, taking part in a discussion on Australia’s strategic and economic future. Forum members can purchase tickets at a 50% discount (and attend for just $21.10). Register for Australia’s position as China and the US reach deals using the discount code: FiftyOff

Markets

Markets Summit 2026 “It’s a whole new world (again)!”
AEDT Wednesday 25 February 2026 | 7+ CE/CPD hrs | A$295+GST (Practitioner)
Join us at our Live Studio, Live Site, or via Live Stream | Register now!
In each of the past three centuries, hugely disruptive technologies have redefined the world – mechanisation in the 18th century; electrification in the 19th; flight and digitisation in the 20th. And now, just five years after Covid disrupted and reshaped the world like no other crisis since World War II, AI has kickstarted a fourth industrial revolution that will fundamentally change the way we work and live once more.
Simultaneously, US President Trump is rapidly dismantling long-held US policy norms, reshaping the government, judiciary, military and media while weaponising national economic policy – heralding in a whole new world of economic statecraft.
Economic statecraft and the race for supremacy in AI and control of rare earths is adding further fuel to US-China rivalry and titanic geopolitical struggle which is playing out in multiple domains, challenging US dollar hegemony and reshaping international relations as other countries respond and reposition – heralding in a whole new world of global economic and security policy, reshaping the global geopolitical, economic and trade order.
Opportunities abound for those able to identify the powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes afoot that are reshaping economies and markets, and reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. In short, immense societal and economic upheaval is once again upending the outlook for investment markets. It’s a whole new world (again)!
Markets Summit 2026 will help you better understand the key drivers of and outlook for the markets and help you build better quality investor portfolios.

Markets

The outlook for the US economy in 2026
This has been a bumpy year for the US economy. The big question now is what 2026 will bring. Even if important downside risks remain, one can be cautiously optimistic heading into the new year.
Nouriel Roubini, Roubini Macro Associates | Read

Markets | Philosophy

3Whats: Crisis of Faith
As 2025 draws to a close, markets are experiencing what is best described as a “crisis of faith”. What this means for investors will depend on the actions already taken so far this year. Those who did nothing are now stuck between a rock and a very hard place.
Wayne Fitzgibbon, Thinking Differently | Read

Strategies | Philosophy | As seen at Strategies Summit 2025

Unlock broader insights to alternative assets
Incorporating alternative assets into multi-asset funds through a Total Portfolio Approach can provide a more informed understanding of risk and return across the whole portfolio.
Deanne Baker, Evidentia Group | 0.25 CE | Watch, Listen

Finology | Philosophy

Research Review: Moral repetition effect
This paper looks at the impact of repetition on our perceptions of unethicality and truth. It finds that the more times we hear about a wrongdoing, the more we may believe it - but the less we may care.
Rob Hamshar, Portfolio Construction Forum | 1.00 CE (Ethics) | Read

Strategies | Markets | As seen at Markets Summit 2025 | Editor’s Pick

Mind the gap(s) between market perception and investing reality
Revisit JP’s top rated presentation from February’s Markets Summit 2025, about what he saw ahead for the year…
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

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

What is the gold price telling us?
With the price of gold hitting new records and pulling back sharply, is it a bubble or a sign of some profound, broader change in the global financial landscape? History does offer some clues.
Jim O’Neill | Read

Strategies | Finology | Philosophy

The Fiduciary Gap
True fiduciary duty is the continual exercise of independent judgement in the client’s best interest. Structural bias is the greatest threat to the future of quality investment advice and outcomes. I call this The Fiduciary Gap.
Graham Rich, Portfolio Construction Forum | Read

Finology | Philosophy | Ethics

The Inquisitor: We need ethics muscle memory - Mary Gentile
Rather than treating ethical decision-making as a cognitive issue, investment professionals should develop “ethics muscle memory”, increasing the chances of successfully navigating moral predicaments in the moment.
Robert Huebscher, Portfolio Construction Forum | 0.75 CE (Ethics) | Watch, Listen

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

It’s time to make a move - Peer Exchange Group
Our diverse panel of portfolio construction practitioners discusses which of the high conviction propositions they heard during Strategies Summit 2025 it is time to make a move on, to design resilient portfolios in practice.
Angela Ashton, Chris Ogilvie, David Wright, Mirko Cugura, Pete Norris | 1.00 CE | Watch, Listen

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

Asset Class Outlook Roundtable 2025/26
Our diverse panel of asset class experts discusses and clarifies the implications of four global economic and markets outlook scenarios for the medium-term (three-year) outlook for key asset classes.
Jonathan Ramsay, Adam Bowe, Qiao Ma, Wayne Fitzgibbon | 0.75 CE | Watch, Listen

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

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.