Like people, economies and markets have lifecycles. This global macro economic, geopolitical and market scene setter looks at where we are in the macro lifecycle and implications for portfolios.

Better quality portfolio construction must take a whole of life focus, considering accumulation and decumulation as equally important phases of one continuous process.

There will be a significant focus by investors in the future to address the mismatch between their risk profile and the risk level of their portfolios.

Contrarian investment ideas are hard to find. After a 20-year bear market and with the Nikkei still 60% below its 1989 high, Japanese equities are an attractive contrarian investment.

This paper examines the empirical relation between risk and return in emerging equity markets and finds that this relation is flat, or even negative.

Looking beyond the immediate risk of Fonterra's product safety issues, over the medium-term, we continue to see sufficient global and domestic economic momentum to support higher bond yields.

In an ideal world, clients would immediately implement the advice they're given. The real world is very different, of course. The growing body of behavioral finance and psychology research can help.

In this bigger picture stuff, I think you'll find some valuable seeds to help you think about - and change or reconfirm - your practice's current approach to investment.

There are valuable lessons in this paper by an adviser who embraced the lifecycle investing approach.

Australia faces big economic challenges - meaning superannuation will inevitably feel pressure for reform which will encompass four key changes.

Increasing FUM brings the risk of detrimental effects on performance, some obvious, others less so.

Defining failure of a retirement investment strategy as the chance of running out of money in retirement leads us to try to minimise this risk. Is it the right approach?

The younger generation of clients who are now in their 30s and 40s has a very different financial outlook than their Baby Boomer parents. Advisers need to retool their client service and advice models to appeal.

Lifecycle investing considers the whole of a person's life to ensure acceptable standards of living are achieved consistently. It differs from more traditional approaches to financial planning in a number of important ways.

According to a recent survey, 37% of retirees cannot tolerate any portfolio losses in any one year. Even conservative portfolios would have failed that test over the past 25 years.

If "The Power of Zero" were a movie, we've just watched the end. The great rotation out of bonds has begun and the beneficiaries will be cash, property, and equities.

One of the few studies on sequencing risk that is based on Australian data, it finds that the widely accepted retirement risk zone rule of thumb is quite wrong for local conditions.

While it is hard to quantify the benefits of investment risk management, it should not be discounted. Risk management is far more than just reporting volatility.

This presentation discusses what advisers from around the world are doing to ensure their clients are more likely to implement the recommendations of their financial adviser.

Is it more important for a fund manager to have strong investment team stability, or to have some turnover of investment team staff to allow for new ideas?