We asked the research houses: What asset classes / product types does your firm include under the 'alternatives' label? Why? How many strategies/funds do you rate in each?

Is this the time to be buying or selling international equities?

Fueling fears of a China bubble is the rapid rise in prices of its residential property market in many of its key cities. Structurally, however, while residential house prices may be vulnerable near term, over the long term, the uptrend would appear to be underpinned...

The Academy Autumn Seminar 2011 will debate the following three topics in a Socratic learning environment: How to judge whether a manager will or has added value; Is investing post-retirement different?; and, How to spot global trends and draw investment inferences from them...

The question of whether China is a bubble is critical for strategic asset allocation, for the outlook for emerging markets, for the future strength of global economic growth, and in determining how much longer the commodity super cycle is likely to continue...

Concern about investment bubbles is at unprecedented levels. Markets Summit 2011 helped delegates decide what is and what is not, a bubble - and what that means for constructing investor portfolios...

We asked the research houses: Of the 15,000 managed funds on offer in the Australian market, how do you determine which ones you will rate?

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...