Consumers and the energy industry are at a crossroad. Customer choices are impacting different parts of the energy supply chain, but energy networks themselves are insulated from emerging technologies.

The diverse range of quality small cap companies with recurring earnings and growing dividend yields offer investors essential risk diversification and should be incorporated into portfolios.

Many investors are facing a dilemma with the perceived risk embedded in debt markets as Fed lift-off looms. However, reality beckons - rates will rise and investors can benefit.

Having a clear investment philosophy based on our own belief set - a living document that we evolve and sharpen over time - is the best tool to making investment decisions under uncertainty.

The view that investors should leave their values at the door is fundamentally mistaken as both an ethical theory and an investment strategy.

Our panel debated the contrasting views of the two presenters who addressed this "crossroad" - that rates are likely to go higher than most expect over the next three years vs that markets will go on tolerating lower interest rates for far longer.

The view that markets will go on tolerating lower interest rates for far longer is the more benign, market friendly (almost bullish) outlook than the common thinking that higher interest rates will be good.

With the Fed signalling its intention to raise rates, there is great disagreement about the quantum of rises ahead. Rates are likely to go higher than most expect - and the risk of a material equity market correction is elevated.

Portfolio construction is approaching a crossroads – critical questions must be answered, and critical decisions must now be made.

It is time to properly account for risk characteristics of client’s most valuable asset - their human capital. This isn’t easy to implement and places practitioners in a difficult situation...

A QMTV (quality, momentum, transition and value) framework can help investors manage buy, hold and sell decisions through various cycles and provide a crossroad signal.

Six years into a bull market, Australian equity values are beginning to look stretched. But large divergences in valuations across sectors are creating great opportunities for truly active managers.

The increasing concentration of the Australian stock market indices is mirrored by the concentration of the Australian funds management industry. What does this mean for alpha generation?

Investors can substantially improve the risk/return characteristics of their strategic asset allocation by considering not only the classic equity premium, but also other premiums present in the equity market.

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.