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.

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.

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.

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.

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

As we have just witnessed, it took an enormous effort to keep Greece in the eurozone. In the end, Europe could deal with the problem. For other members, such propping up will not always be possible. What happens next in France, Spain and Italy may well turn out to be more worrying than anything we have seen around Athens so far.

A simple ratchet-style "safe" withdrawal rate approach, where spending is increased by 10% any time the portfolio rises more than 50% above its starting value, beats the traditional 4% rule, generating equal or better retirement spending, even while being conservative enough to not require a spending cut in the event of a market pullback in the future.

This week, Chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen has repeatedly said it is likely the Fed will lift its policy rate at its September meeting. It will be a minor adjustment but a momentous event. In short, I expect the first 100 basis points of Fed normalisation will have relatively little effect on long-term rates - with a critical caveat.

Despite all the negative ink that's been spilt over the recent collapse in Chinese equities, we continue to believe that a year from now there will be more marginal buyers of Chinese equities than today.

Whatever the EU now decides at its summit on Sunday (the umpteenth, by my count), it will be costly. It is unlikely to work. And it was totally avoidable.