This one has been around for a while now. We have seen how the sub-prime lending crisis brought the US and European banking systems to their knees. The story goes that the Australian banking system is also a time bomb waiting to happen...

The rise in prices for natural resources and the associated planned increase in Australian-based capacity to supply key commodities is one of the largest economic events in our history. I will structure my remarks around four questions: What do we know from previous booms? What do we know about this one? What don't we know? How should we respond?

The tectonic plates of the Arab world have ruptured and the geopolitical fault lines that have shaped and defined the region for sixty years have shifted inexorably. What does that mean for investing?

The Summer Seminar 2011 debated the following three carefully selected topics, in a Socratic learning environment: Forever blowing bubbles; Avoiding avoidable mistakes; and, Agency risk and portfolio construction...

Market strategist and PortfolioConstruction Forum regular, Jonathan Pain, outlines what lies ahead in 2011, including the investment theme he describes as the next BIG thing...

The 2010 PortfolioConstruction Conference Resources Kit is an invaluable set of continuing education material including the presentations, podcasts, videos, and research papers across the Masterclass, Critical Issues Forum, and Due Diligence Forum programs...

The 10-hour Critical Issues Forum is one of two key components of the annual PortfolioConstruction Conference. It is a totally independent 10-hour plenary program featuring interactive sessions and selected international and local portfolio experts, designed by our specialist, experienced and independent team to cover two of our three pillars – Markets and Strategies. This Resources Kit - available only to Conference delegates - comprises videos, podcasts, papers and slides along with questions/comments raised by delegates during the program...

The 6-hour Due Diligence Forum is the second component of the annual PortfolioConstruction Conference, complementing the Critical Issues Forum. This Resources Kit - available to all PortfolioConstruction Forum members - contains the presentations, podcasts and research papers from the 2010 Due Diligence Forum program featuring 20 international and local investment experts presenting pre-approved research papers written specifically for Conference...

In this 2010 PortfolioConstruction Conference Critical Issues Forum session, our two Inquisitors - Tim Farrelly and Chris Watling - summed up their key take outs from Conference, and actions to take as a result when building investor portfolios...

In this 2010 PortfolioConstruction Conference Critical Issues Forum session, Tim Farrelly, Principal of farrelly's, argued that bubbles are often - but not always - detectable in advance and gave delegates an analytical framework to identify bubbles before they burst...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 argued that, going forward, it is vital to consider the market environment and latest academic research, and develop a better approach to TAA and downside risk protection, including using second generation capital protected strategies to help create more robust portfolios...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 highlighted the importance of a specific allocation to global listed soft commodities due to its small representation in the MSCI World Index, and argued that the soft commodities sector provides portfolio diversification benefits, with a low correlation and more attractive risk/return profile compared to broad global equities...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 argued the case for active management in the Australian smaller companies segment, highlighting that historically, median small cap managers have solidly exceeded the relevant benchmark, and addressed some of the reasons why an active small cap manager can provide a valuable addition to an investor’s portfolio...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 addressed the construction of a multi-manager alternative product completely at odds with conventional wisdom in that it has a very small number of managers, and the use of such a fund in a typical Australian diversified portfolio...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 analysed the commercial property market and investigated the various factors contributing to long-term, medium-term and short-term trends...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 reviewed the concept of Active Money and how it can be applied in the Australian equity market to provide practitioners with a greater level of insight into the risk in Australian equity products...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 explained why the Net Asset Value of international ETFs can differ from the daily closing price on exchange, and the reasons behind these pricing differences...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 argued that Global Financial Crisis highlighted the flaw in modern portfolio theory which has dominated the industry’s approach to portfolio risk for decades, and made the case that portfolio risk is much broader than simply return volatility, and that the industry’s reliance on short-term volatility measures leads to incorrect assessments of portfolio risk...

This Due Diligence Forum Research Paper and Presentation from PortfolioConstruction Conference 2010 argued that 130/30 strategies can viewed as an alternative to long-only funds, with short selling used as a possible way to generate alpha and improve portfolio efficiency...