Short Description: The purpose of investing is not simply to accumulate wealth. The real "prize" is financial wellbeing. As Yogi Berra famously observed: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." Eyes on the prize! Strategies Summit 2026 (Wed 19 Aug) will challenge and refresh your portfolio construction thinking through robust debate of contemporary and emerging strategies to help you build better quality portfolios.

Over the past three decades, geopolitical fragmentation, technological disruption, fiscal expansion, energy security concerns and changing market structures – and now, the infusion of AI into every aspect of society – have altered the very foundations on which portfolios have been built. In short, the macro environment that shaped portfolio construction no longer exists.

The world is always uncertain. Many events – wars, pandemics, terror attacks – have felt historic at the time but have had little lasting impact on either economies or markets. More recently, despite the US’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, globalisation is alive and well. Real oil prices remain near the long-run average despite the closure of the Straits of Hormuz causing the biggest hit to global oil supply in history. Recessions are caused by a bust in business investment but there has never been a bust without a boom – and we are not there yet. Bond yields have “normalised” after 15 years of historic lows while equity markets have mean reverted since the GFC, possibly suggesting near-term downside, but we are yet to see an end-of-cycle melt-up. Every era convinces itself it’s living through something unprecedented. Noise and cognitive bias can distort our reading of the world – but a fresh lens reveals just how resilient the global economy really is.

Volatility is no longer a temporary disruption. It is increasingly a defining feature of the investment landscape. Geopolitical fragmentation, tighter liquidity, technological change and faster capital cycles are reshaping markets, while volatility is reinforcing secular themes such as AI, electrification, energy infrastructure and national security, creating generational thematic investment opportunities. As short-term market outcomes remain uncertain, the direction of these long-term forces is becoming clearer. Investors should look beyond traditional diversification and keep their eyes on the prize – building exposure to the capital-intensive themes driving economic change, using private markets to access broader opportunity sets, enhance resilience and capture long-term returns.

Even the best fund managers tend to pick stocks that outperform less than 50% of the time. That’s not a flaw in the system. That is the system. Yet some active managers consistently win more from the decisions they get right, than they lose on the decisions they get wrong – enabling them to generate alpha regardless of market conditions. By understanding the investment behaviours of these stock market “maestros”, practitioners can not only identify highly skilled fund managers but also improve their own portfolio construction decisions, better equipping them to deliver the ultimate “prize” for clients - financial wellbeing.

Portfolio construction must evolve to reflect a structurally different world. Traditional diversification assumptions and portfolio frameworks which may not fully capture the risks to which portfolios are actually exposed - or take advantage of emerging asset class opportunities that the structurally different world is exposing.
How can practitioners construct multi-asset, multi-manager investment (MAMMI) portfolios which are greater than the sum of their parts and improve the financial wellbeing of individuals?

A static fixed income allocation was built for a world that no longer exists. The price-insensitive central-bank buyer that suppressed volatility and kept bonds negatively correlated to equities has disappeared at a time when inflation and fiscal sustainability risks are at the forefront of investors’ minds. This new regime demands an unconstrained, absolute-return approach – absolute return fixed income is the diversification prize. However, absolute return strategies can differ substantially in flexibility and exposures. A factor-based framework can help investors understand which characteristics to look for when assessing these strategies.

Markets have narrowed sharply around a single theme: AI hardware bottlenecks, amplified by the launch of AI agents and scaled-up capex plans. Concentration and single-theme exuberance typically precede a durable broadening, with value dispersion narrowing and the style outperforming even as industry outcomes widen through disruption. Markets are at a turning point where the valuation extremes are set to unwind, and the next cycle’s winners will look very different from previous decades. Allocators seeking diversification and protection should rebalance toward fundamental value in global equity portfolios.

Today, more than 90% of global investable assets exhibit a meaningful correlation with the S&P 500, compared with just 26% in 1995. Where the S&P 500 goes, increasingly, so does the rest of the portfolio. The portfolio construction challenge is no longer simply owning different assets. Many of the traditional sources of diversification – including bonds, private markets and hedge funds – have become increasingly caught up in the same market forces. This makes alternative risk premia crucial. Unlike traditional market beta, they arise from structural and behavioural inefficiencies, providing a differentiated source of return that can improve portfolio resilience, increase returns per unit of risk - and keep investors’ eyes on the prize.

It’s more important than ever today to “cut through the noise” when constructing portfolios. Traditional strategic allocation frameworks may be too static for a macro backdrop that continues to evolve – but portfolios also should not be repositioned simply in response to every headline. Keeping your eyes on the prize requires disciplined integration by using macro data within a quantitative, repeatable process to guide portfolio decisions. Connecting macro signals to portfolio construction across public and private markets helps allocators manage changing risks and opportunities and build portfolios with greater confidence and consistency.

Risk is not volatility or tracking error, it is the permanent loss of capital – and most portfolio-construction machinery measures the wrong one. A market-capitalisation benchmark describes the past; using it to control risk quietly outsources position sizing to momentum. Every active portfolio holds two bets: selection, which is measured, and sizing, which is merely asserted. Decades of evidence show naive equal weighting is remarkably hard to beat, because sizing rests on return estimates too noisy to trust – the gain from over-weighting favourites is arithmetically identical to a weighting skill that is measurable yet rarely distinguishable from zero. Keeping eyes on the prize – protecting compounding – means separating selection from sizing in manager evaluation, and defaulting to equal weight unless sizing skill can be demonstrated.

With some sectors of the private credit market facing rising redemptions, liquidity scrutiny and weakening confidence, concentrating portfolios in a narrow, illiquid slice of the market is hard to justify – especially when private credit is only ~10% of Australia’s ~$2.2 trillion credit universe. The challenge is no longer accessing income, but generating it without sacrificing diversification, liquidity or flexibility, and higher income need not mean a shift into illiquid strategies. A multi-sector approach offers a credit opportunity set ~10x larger than private credit, daily liquidity instead of quarterly gates, and diversified relative value across every sector – capturing similar yield without concentrating risk in one illiquid slice.

Portfolio construction must evolve to reflect a structurally different world. Traditional diversification assumptions and portfolio frameworks which may not fully capture the risks to which portfolios are actually exposed - or take advantage of emerging asset class opportunities that the structurally different world is exposing.
How can practitioners construct multi-asset, multi-manager investment (MAMMI) portfolios which are greater than the sum of their parts and improve the financial wellbeing of individuals?

In a world of structural change, geopolitical uncertainty and technological disruption, traditional portfolio diversifiers are no longer delivering the outcomes investors expect. Bonds offer both lower income and less diversification than they have provided historically. Australian institutional senior secured lending combines consistent income, low volatility, low correlation to traditional asset classes and capital preservation through security, covenants and strong lender protections. For investors seeking to keep their "eyes on the prize" of long-term investor financial wellbeing, the focus should be on building more resilient portfolios by substituting traditional bond allocations with a growing allocation to Australian institutional senior secured lending, as a source of consistent income, capital stability and diversification.

he forces of innovation and disruption, and changes in investors’ discount rates, drive significant rotations in markets. Neither can be reliably forecast. The corporate life cycle concept describes how companies’ returns on capital progress through five stages: Accelerating, Compounding, Fading, Mature and Turnaround. A company’s position tells you how it is exposed to the forces of innovation and disruption , how it can create wealth and how its valuation might respond to changes in investors’ discount rates. In global equities, portfolios balanced through this lens are resilient to market rotations and have more of their risk concentrated in stock specific risk which is aligned with stock pickers’ edge. This lens keeps allocators’ eyes on the prize: a balanced global equity core portfolio that can perform through changing markets.

Many investors continue to classify Global Listed Infrastructure as a satellite or alternative allocation only – despite its resilience and earnings growth outlook becoming stronger and more durable. Rising power demand, energy security and mobility are supporting sustained growth for monopolistic assets providing essential services and networks that underpin economies. While infrastructure retains defensive characteristics, its role in portfolios has evolved beyond diversification and downside protection. Investors who cling to outdated asset class classifications risk overlooking Global Listed Infrastructure – an asset class capable of combining inflation protection, income and structural growth – which is worthy of a larger, core allocation in portfolios through an investor’s lifecycle.

Portfolio construction must evolve to reflect a structurally different world. Traditional diversification assumptions and portfolio frameworks which may not fully capture the risks to which portfolios are actually exposed - or take advantage of emerging asset class opportunities that the structurally different world is exposing.
How can practitioners construct multi-asset, multi-manager investment (MAMMI) portfolios which are greater than the sum of their parts and improve the financial wellbeing of individuals?

Conflict, strategic competition, defence spending, energy insecurity and supply-chain redesign are impacting inflation, fiscal policy, interest rates, currencies and cross-asset correlations. Growing our knowledge of what drives geopolitics dramatically improves our ability to identify and understand the related economic risks that are impacting investment markets, to ensure that geopolitical resilience is baked into portfolios.

Established in 2002, Strategies Summit is THE portfolio construction strategies conference of the year. Presented each August, the program features 50+ carefully selected leading investment thinkers who will challenge and refresh your portfolio construction thinking by debating contemporary and emerging portfolio construction strategies, for you to consider applying in practice to build better quality portfolios.

This Research Spotlight focuses on the Royal London Global Equity Select strategy, a benchmark-unaware global equities strategy utilising a business life cycle investment approach to identify materially undervalued companies.

The purpose of investing is not simply to accumulate wealth. The real "prize" is financial wellbeing. As Yogi Berra famously observed: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." Eyes on the prize! Strategies Summit 2026 (Wed 19 Aug) will challenge and refresh your portfolio construction thinking through robust debate of contemporary and emerging strategies to help you build better quality portfolios.

Research Roundtable is a two-hour, moderated investment solution case study taking the form of a hypothetical Investment Committee. The focus of this Research Roundtable is the Royal London Global Equity Select strategy, a benchmark-unaware global equities strategy utilising a business life cycle investment approach to identify materially undervalued companies, with the London-based Lead Portfolio Manager, Francois de Bruin, participating.

Portfolio Construction Forum's inaugural Private Markets International Short Course in New York could not have been more timely, as private markets moved through a structural inflection during April, May, and June, driven by rising liquidity demands, regulatory scrutiny, and the rapid funding of AI initiatives.

The Investment Management Analyst Certificate (IMAC) advances investment management analyst knowledge, skill and expertise in a definitive set of competencies necessary for building and/or advising on quality multi-manager portfolios. It is both a structured post-graduate certificate course in its own right, and the Australian-based Registered Education Program for the global Certified Investment Management Analyst® (CIMA®) program.

Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) is the peak, international technical portfolio construction certification program designed for investment management analysts - that is, those involved in any aspect of constructing multi-asset, multi-manager portfolios.

Behavioural analysis enables a deeper insight into fund performance and the identification of highly skilled managers capable of generating consistent investment alpha.

AI has emerged as one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century, offering remarkable capabilities in data processing, pattern recognition, and automation. This paper provides a useful discussion of the use of AI by investment funds.

Following US President Trump ordering a strategic Bitcoin reserve be established, private companies, investment banks, and scholars have begun urging major central banks to do the same. The idea is not quite as far-fetched as it may seem.

ASIC's report on regulatory developments and issues affecting financial advice covers all areas of financial advice regulation relevant to Australian financial services (AFS) licensees.

Markets Summit 2026 (Wed 25 Feb) helped delegates understand the key drivers of and outlook for the markets and help you build better quality investor portfolios. AI has kickstarted a fourth industrial revolution that will fundamentally change the way we work and live once more. Simultaneously, US President Trump is weaponising national economic policy and the US-China race for supremacy in AI and control of rare earths is adding further fuel to their titanic geopolitical struggle, reshaping the global geopolitical, economic and trade order. In short, immense societal and economic upheaval is upending the outlook for investment markets. It's a whole new world (again)!

2025 was likely the beginning of the end of US exceptionalism in markets. It's a whole new world (again)! – but many portfolios are positioned for the past based on an incomplete assessment of risk and reward.

For decades, investors relied on a stable, predictable world. Today, that world is being mugged by reality. Portfolios must focus on places where the rule of law still matters and identify the strategic bottlenecks that now pick the winners and losers.

This session explored two perspectives on the drivers of and outlook for Australian and global fixed income - The RBA's lower speed limit means lower interest rates, not higher; and, Unconscious and concentrated, it's no time to be passive.

As the RBA hikes rates to curb inflation due to a lower speed limit, should investors ultimately be expecting lower or higher bond yields?

We're witnessing a profound and transformation shift in markets and economies, marked by an end to globalisation and a focus on national priorities, intertwined with the drive for AI supremacy. This is not time to be inactive!

The dominance of passive investing and mega-cap concentration has created a widening structural opportunity in small-cap equities - the widest inefficiency in public equity markets and a compelling return outlook.

AI, geopolitical realignment, energy transition, and aging demographics are reshaping the world, creating opportunities for diversification and downside protection versus passive core portfolios overweight the 'old world'.

The valuation disconnect between REITs and broader equities is at levels only seen during the GFC, yet the underlying real estate fundamentals tell a very different story. It's time to ‘buy-the-dip’ in high quality global real estate.

A changing equity market structure is emerging, driven by changing investor behaviour and advances in AI - and global small-cap equities sit at the centre of this shift, as one of the last frontiers of inefficiency in public markets.

Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes. This panel debated the outlook for real assets, global absolute return debt, and Australian and international private credit.

After more than two decades of an ever-present central bank demand backstop, we're now entering a global fixed income market devoid of price insensitive demand, challenging the risk/return profile going forward.

A persistent supply–demand imbalance, combined with tighter bank capital requirements, is opening the door to more opportunities for private lenders.

As demand for private credit has grown over the past five years, so too has the availability of offerings such as the US Business Development Companies (BDCs). The current balance of risks tilts toward a favourable risk/return profile.

Headlines highlight the growing demand for power generation, largely driven by digitalisation, AI, robotics, and automation. The undersupply of infrastructure needed to support it provides a real market opportunity for investors.

Post-GFC, banks trimmed corporate credit risk from their balance sheets, creating a direct lending boom. We are now in the early innings of Asset Backed Finance filling a similar capital void.

Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes and opportunities abound for those able to reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. This panel debated the outlook for global equities and liquid alternatives.

Artificial Intelligence is disrupting industries and creating winners, losers, and perceived losers. Long-term value is created by owning resilient businesses rather than chasing momentum.

The first phase of the AI super cycle was driven by a narrow group of US companies, but the world’s reliance and dependence on US technology and defence has shifted. A new chapter of technological power has begun beyond US borders.

Liquid alternatives promise two things - diversification from equities and compelling standalone returns. Yet most fall short. Investors need liquid alternatives to be bold and flexible.

We are living in an age of exponential change and radical uncertainty. We must prepare ourselves (and our portfolios) for the seismic societal and economic shocks that are hurtling our way – we're witnessing the mother of all disruptions.

AI has kickstarted a fourth industrial revolution that will fundamentally change the way we work and live once more. Simultaneously, US President Trump is weaponising national economic policy and the US-China race for supremacy in AI and control of rare earths is adding further fuel to their titanic geopolitical struggle, reshaping the global geopolitical, economic and trade order. In short, immense societal and economic upheaval is upending the outlook for investment markets. It's a whole new world (again)! Markets Summit 2026 (Wed 25 Feb) will help you better understand the key drivers of and outlook for the markets and help you build better quality investor portfolios.