Drawing on his unique background as part of the elite leadership team of the CIA's Clandestine Service, David shares his views and analysis of the current geopolitical landscape.

Much macroeconomic analysis is very narrow in scope. ESG factors are ignored all together. A new indicator of national progress measures economic dynamism and progress on meeting ESG goals.

Two of the defining characteristics of the global investment landscape over the last 30 years are being reversed - globalisation (by economic nationalism) and finalisation (as we've reached peak debt).

We see three scenarios for 2019 - is it a benign outlook like 2016? A bubble bursting like 2000? Or will inflation accelerate?

This view has dominated finance theory for the last 50 years or so. But prices change because people trade, and those trades leave behind a trace of all the behavioural biases people bring.

Buffett called Bitcoin rat poison squared, Schiller called it a financial bubble. We disagree. Bitcoin is perhaps the most important financial innovation ever. And it is one step closer to "ideal money".

The US economy needs to slow down. The key question is what causes it to slow and which markets fishtail as a result. It is time to be very careful with portfolios.

Ex-CIA Acting Director and economist, Morell worked with six US Presidents. He explains the current geopolitical inflection point that will affect the world economy for a very long time.

Banking and finance are an extreme case of governance and policy failures, where the abuse of power and lack of trust in institutions undermine capitalism and democracy.

The world is getting very interesting. Two strong forces - the US economy accelerating vs tariffs getting bigger - are creating a tug of war that means you need to have a bet each way.

In the cyber world today, we are somewhere around World War I. There are more than 30 nations with effective cyber forces. Practitioners need to understand the threat cyber weapons pose to markets and investments.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) invests heavily in high technology research. While the world will certainly benefit from the PRC's technological ambition, it also has challenging implications.

Machine learning algorithms are no match for the human brain when it comes to deciding how investment portfolios should be constructed.

Investors like to have their cake and eat it - i.e., they like investment returns (the higher the better) but dislike volatility (particularly negative returns). It is possible to engineer investment returns that meet those requirements.

A disciplined, scenarios-based approach to determining your views on the outlook for markets and the asset allocation implications can help future-proof portfolios. This hypothetical Investment Committee meeting considers the asset allocation implications of three scenarios.

The Australian (and global economy) is facing decades of significant technological change that will reshape how we work, where we work, and how we relate to each other economically and politically.

Harry Markowitz called diversification "the only free lunch in finance". But it can’t be taken for granted as not all diversification is good. The answer will often lie with good rules of thumb.

Investors should treat foreign currency as an asset class in its own right, considering both short- and long-term currency risks, as well as where the best return opportunities lie.

Unconstrained strategies can be supportive in both maximising portfolio returns and reducing risk but a clear philosophy and framework for apportioning risk in unconstrained portfolios is key.

Investors need to entirely rethink their processes, assumptions and research approach, to focus on the cultures of consumers in different markets. Only by thinking like new brands themselves, can investors identify and invest in the next powerful emerging trend.