Infrastructure has gained greater focus in recent years, with investors drawn to its defensive characteristics. But infrastructure investing requires a tight definition to deliver the defensive attributes that investors are targeting.

The longer interest rates stay negative, the more distortions will appear in financial markets. Certain trends are already in place which could ultimately lead to severe distortions.

Investors should not buy stocks merely based on their volatility (or other risk) characteristics, but also take into account factors that are known to have a large impact on returns, such as valuation and momentum.

Individuals have three types of capital - financial capital (pretty obvious, everybody understands that) as well as human capital and social capital. All three affect our financial and retirement decisions.

Although it is widely appreciated that past performance is not a guide to future returns, it is less appreciated that past diversification is not a guide to future risk.

There are three escapes the Fed had to make in order to declare its mission a success - escape from a liquidity trap, escape from quantitative easing, and, escape from the zero bound. Only the last remains. Will it achieve its great escape? Probably.

In this week's Fodder, we bring you perspectives from some of our faculty for the upcoming PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference 2015.

In this week's Fodder, we bring you perspectives from some of our faculty for the upcoming PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference 2015.

While the debate over the value of active investment management has intensified in recent years, the outperformance of boutique managers over non-boutiques and indices has been overlooked.

High active share is often profiled as "better" but such portfolios can exhibit risk concentrations which may lead to volatile return streams. Low active share funds should not be excluded from asset allocators’ tool kit.

The rise of liquid alternatives not only marks an improvement on traditional fund of hedge funds, it also makes a hedge fund allocation a genuine competitor with other onshore absolute return solutions.

This report explores institutional investors' attitudes toward equity market risk and looks at the downside protection strategies they are using to insure their portfolios against volatility.

Traditionally, risk management might have been considered as a monitoring activity only. Risk analysis, can, however, add value at the earlier stages of the investment process.

The US Federal Reserve is (reluctantly) ending a long period of abnormally low rates. Traditional drivers of portfolio returns such as productivity and earnings growth are set to reassert themselves.

There are a number of reasons to be optimistic about China's long-term economic future, but the short-to-medium term challenges are considerable.

This week's Fodder kicks off with three perspectives on China, before turning to the challenge of finding skill in active managers, plus a new "Undiscovered Fund".

This week's Fodder kicks off with 3 perspectives on China, before turning to the challenge of finding skill in active managers, plus a new "Undiscovered Fund".

China is a glass both half full and half empty. It will continue to grow and become a great superpower, but its future growth rate will be significantly lower than President Xi's "new normal" 6% forecast.

The challenge in finding differential skill among active managers reflects a surfeit, not a dearth, of skill. This is the major lesson of the paradox of skill. As Napoleon was reported to say, "Ability is nothing without opportunity."

In Fodder this week - GaveKal & Hartwich on the Eurozone plus Michael Kitces provides an improved version of the 4% rule.