This week's Fodder is a real mixed bag - portfolios, Africa, retirement spending, and risk profiling.

This week's Fodder NZ is a real mixed bag - portfolios, Africa, retirement spending, and risk profiling.

The current investment environment is arguably one of the toughest ever in which to build portfolios that deliver return and are robust into the future. There are a range of approaches that can be taken.

"Africa rising" has been a catchphrase since the beginning of this century. It is the idea that Africa, and especially Sub-Saharan Africa, could be to the 21st century what South-East Asia was to the second half of the 20th century.

Many have spoken of the significant risks funds carry with Australian equities exposures. So I thought I'd check the evidence on the influence of equities on multi-asset portfolios.

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. Central bankers seem intent on repeating their mistakes - especially when it comes to negative interest rates.

Investors are not accounting for the structural shifts taking place in East Asia that raise the probability of market-negative events. Asia- or EM-dedicated investors should hedge their risks by exposure to DM assets.

Symposium facilitates featured a stellar line up of 20 international and local experts - including special guest keynote, Professor Niall Ferguson, PhD, internationally renowned economic and financial historian - offering their expert, high conviction ideas to help build better quality investor portfolios.

The extreme thirst for yield has pushed the US high yield debt cycle into unchartered territory. It is approaching shakeout - with long/short opportunities amongst the beneficiaries of the current cycle.

Markets are focused on the economic cycle as an indicator of central bank actions. But inflation should be the most important macro indicator on the radar of investors.

Most economists continue to view the economic future as more rosy (if their forecasts of economic acceleration are any guide) while the Fed is implicitly saying the same by raising rates and forecasting further rate rises. But there are three main reasons caution.

Australia is increasingly resorting to "debt bubble economics" - exactly what caused bubbles and major busts in the US and other economies in recent decades.

The lesson of history is that British isolationism is a trigger for continental disintegration. A vote for Brexit will mean Britain will have to "Breturn" sooner or later, to sort out the ensuing mess.

You may have concluded by now that the euro crisis is over. If you are a realist, however, you would be looking at two figures and know that we are still right in the middle of the euro crisis. And it has become permanent.

The Brexit referendum is about where the British see the best chances for their future. The 'Out' camp has the better arguments. The EU needs Britain more than Britain needs the EU.

The policy response to a hugely levered global economy has turned to a discussion of money creation to fund fiscal stimulus. The cure is not going ever more unconventional.

In Fodder NZ this week - Dom McCormick's view of annual investment outlooks, and the top 3 rated Markets Summit 21016 presentations, featuring Chris Watling, Hamish Douglass and Ron Temple

In Fodder this week - Dom McCormick's view of annual investment outlooks, and the top 3 rated Markets Summit 21016 presentations, featuring Chris Watling, Hamish Douglass and Ron Temple

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that the vast majority of annual investment outlook pieces are frequently useless to the average investor or adviser.

In Fodder NZ this week - Chris Watling's key takeouts from Markets Summit 2016, plus Micahel Furey, Jonathan Pain, Anatole Kaletsky & Jacob Mitchell