Consumers have a minimum level of expectation of a profession - requiring fundamental shifts in the ethical, educational and protection of public interest standards of some representative financial adviser organisations.

Symposium facilitated debate on the three pillars of portfolio construction – markets, strategies and investing - to help delegates build better quality portfolios. This CPD Quiz is for delegates to complete, to receive Structured CPD Hours.

Cyberspace is the new frontier and just like the old Wild West, bullets (albeit electronic ones) are flying. It is a big learning curve for investors.

The Academy Winter Seminar 2013 features four sessions: Get micro about the macro - looking at big risks through the microscope; The Equity Risk Premium; A focus on Australian equities strategies in an objectives-based investing world; and, Equities and Inflation.

The Academy Autumn Seminar 2013 featured five sessions: Market risk; Is Chinese growth a ponzi scheme?; Risk profiling; The approach to risk profiling for retirees; and Using risk factors to evaluate investments and build portfolios.

The Academy Summer Seminar 2013 featured three sessions: Making sense of the noise; Making sense of macroeconomic data; and, measurement and mis-measurement of risk.

The Academy Spring Seminar 2012 featured four sessions: Believe it or not; Improving decision-making under uncertainty; Diversification - where it works (and where it doesn't); and The changing of the Chinese guard.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. His capacity for forgiveness and sense of humility is a shining example for all humanity.

After years of talking with clients coming to his firm from other advisers, one adviser compiled a list of reasons they left. I suspect these practices are widespread.

I continue to be positive on the broader global economic backdrop - but buckle up and prepare for some turbulence over the next few months.

This recent research paper challenges the usual risk parity approach to asset allocation.

We asked delegates from the recent PortfolioConstruction Forum Symposium 2013 in Auckland for their key takeouts from the jam-packed, two-day program.

New research suggests that advisers should stop telling Gen X and Gen Y clients to save more now and, instead, simply help them to save more tomorrow.

Investment is often compromised by the quest for easy answers to difficult and involved issues. Risk is one.

When the GFC started, governments increased spending and hoped for multiplier effects. Six years on, it appears the critics have been right all along.

Increasingly, financial advisers operating in the investment space are reassessing their fee structures. Strategi has identified some remuneration trends.

When all the risks are plain to see, investors understandably become cautious. But often, the very best time to buy is when the risks are well and truly known.

Everyone knows what alpha is - right? Yet even experienced practitioners fall into the trap of talking about alpha as being purely outperformance.

The reaction of bond and equity markets in May highlights the almost impossible balancing act faced by the US Fed now the amount of monetary stimulus is so extreme.

As the US economy continues to recover from the GFC, the US Fed faces an almost impossible balancing act. Closer to home, the RBNZ faces an almost impossible balancing act of its own.