Market cycles show there is a clear anomaly in the Senior Secured Loans space with record setting yields and compelling risk-adjusted returns.

History shows investors should always expect the unexpected – which simply underscores the benefits of adding private debt to a portfolio.

For the last two decades, private equity has consistently outperformed the public market, through market cycles and with less volatility. In 2023, private equity continued to show superior returns in the mid-market. Looking forward, the outlook for is stronger.

Australia's residential vacancy rate is at a record low and net overseas migration at a record high. But, the banks can no longer participate in the market like they used to, providing greater opportunity for real estate private credit.

Higher than desired inflation is now structurally embedded in the global economy. The boom-bust inflation cycle of the 1970s gives a useful historical parallel, providing investors insight into the coming decade.

The technology sector has now eclipsed its all-time high relative to the S&P 500, exceeding its dot.com bubble highs. So this begs the question – is this a bubble and what is the risk of another tech wreck?

With heightened global geopolitical risks, reduced fiscal support from governments, a deflating Chinese property bubble, and an ongoing US commercial real estate crisis, 2024 is a year for investors to be nimble and tactical.

Our diverse panel of experts debated the high conviction propositions they heard during Markets Summit 2024 and the portfolio construction implications.

We are in an investment environment like that of the pre-GFC period. Bonds will offer higher levels of both income and diversification, within a multi-asset portfolio.

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the psychology of attention and its relationship to key economic concepts (utility, risk-taking, social preferences, and learning), and the emerging role of AI in the modern economy.

Contrary to wide opinion, globalisation is not "history" but is being reinvented. For investors, a less interconnected world has significant implications for corporate capital expenditure and country allocation.

This paper provides a penetrating view into some of the motivational dynamics in play for individual investors who select sustainability-related investments, and implications for financial intermediaries who manufacture and sell such products.

This report summarises the key observations from ASIC's review of how issuers of investment products are meeting design and distribution obligations and areas for improvement.

This lecture argues that client behaviour profiling should be a critical first step of the financial advice process. It examines why ethical client profiling - leveraging off psychology, behavioural finance, ethics, and the financial advice process - is necessary to successfully deliver consistent positive client outcomes. NOTE: This lecture is available for purchase - go to https://portfolioconstructionforum.edu.au/on-the-hunt/

The WallStreetBets phenomenon - and the sensational short squeeze of Gamestop in 2021 in particular - demonstrated the potentially dramatic influence of collective retail behaviour on financial markets.

We are living in the middle of a major societal shift towards not just the use of, but the reliance, dependence and advancement of our lives being built on technology that seeks to emulate us, mimic us and envelope us.

AI has been described as important a lever for detaching economic growth from population growth as the steam engine. Companies that don't use AI to remake their business simply don't have a place in today's portfolios.

Three gigantic, global, interconnected risks have the potential to upend the world as we know it. Investors who understand these will be better positioned to successfully navigate the uncertainty plaguing our world.

In the same way that Moneyball has swept every professional sport, data science is bringing greater transparency to portfolio managers' decision-making skill. To select managers capable of outperforming, behavioural analysis is crucial.

At a time when "you can do anything", there are meaningful implications and opportunities for portfolio rebalancing and investors still structurally underweight bonds need to put aside recency bias and "do something" - now.