This session examines the emergence of new tools that allow managers to take advantage of new segments of the fixed income market and shows how managers with the right skills are equipped to uncover the dynamic opportunities of this once staid asset class...

When it comes to active management, two heads are better than one, and three heads are even better! Harnessing this insight to generate excess returns is a complex portfolio construction problem...

This session discusses how investors can potentially achieve more consistent and higher long-term returns by investing in more - not less - stocks...

This session explores the alternative investments universe – how alternative investments inter-relate with traditional markets, and their role in portfolio construction...

This session explains how companies that have a sustainable competitive edge, having created this by owning or operating assets that are difficult to replicate, can deliver superior returns over time...

This session explores a recent study undertaken by State Street Global Advisers looking at the value added by specialist managers operating in the Australian institutional market across the Australian equities, international equities and listed property trusts sectors...

The meltdown of Basis Capital has highlighted the need for much greater clarity of communication from research houses – particularly when it comes to describing product risk. With the benefit of hindsight, it is fun to look back and see what the research houses were saying about the risk of the Basis Capital Yield fund before the event. We see nothing on the two pieces of information that really matter...

Many planners still use long term historical returns to estimate future market returns on the basis that, if the historical period is long enough, everything smoothes out. This is pure bunk. In order to demonstrate this as conclusively as possible, we illustrate the impact of using 20 year historical returns as forecasts for the subsequent decade across six major equity markets over the past 107 years...

In the next few weeks, the publishing industry will have given us two books that, paired together, blow the doors off of conventional market theory. Both acknowledge that if you want to study and understand the markets, instead of examining the movements of stock prices, you have to shift your attention to the people who are actually making the trades...

You learn a vast amount in a week. Here are my key takeouts from Day 1...

Near the end of each decade, a bubble seems to emerge in financial markets...

Audio and Powerpoints from the 2006 PortfolioConstruction Conference Due Diligence Forum sessions...

A large number of high conviction or "concentrated" equity funds have been released in recent years, all promising higher returns than traditional funds by focusing on the strongest stock selection ideas of a manager. This paper examines the evolution of high conviction funds, looking at why they have been developed, their risk/return characteristics and the broader implications for portfolio management...

Short of time? For each Journal issue, we highlight papers we feel you shouldn't miss - this is one. It investigates whether resources is a bubble ready to burst or whether they still represent an attractive investment proposition, and how best to incorporate resources into a portfolio...

This paper discusses balancing liquidity, income, valuation, risk and diversification objectives in building property portfolios. It examines the key questions currently confronting Australian investors – How should investors gain exposure to offshore assets? Which markets provide appropriate income levels? How can direct property be included in a portfolio without sacrificing liquidity? What are the current valuation conditions in markets? – and demonstrates the characteristics of an optimal property portfolio.

Hybrids have delivered uncorrelated high returns combined with low volatility over the past five years. This paper explores why, despite some changes in the return equation, their reduced risk and still healthy returns make hybrids one of the most compelling income sub-sectors....

In a small, concentrated market like Australian equities, fund capacity is an important consideration for investors. This paper discusses why the most important factor in determining capacity is an Australian equity manager's style and the best representation of style is actual performance and trading history...

Short of time? This is one Journal paper you shouldn't miss. It examines why and how India should be a key component of investors’ exposure to emerging markets, arguing that investors should not limit themselves to just one leg of the BRIC/emerging markets story...

A market-weighted approach has been the traditional way of constructing international equity portfolios – often because this is the type of benchmark index against which fund managers are measured. But is this the best approach? Building market cap-weighted portfolios is not the mantra of all active, large cap equity managers. This paper examines an alternative construct for an international equities portfolio that encapsulates potentially greater investment returns and a better way of assessing portfolio performance.

In theory, funds management is a highly scaleable business where profit growth results from increased funds under management (FUM) while product quality (investment returns) remains unaffected – alpha creation is purely a function of portfolio construction through time and the size of the portfolio is irrelevant. However, there is reason to believe the product quality of a funds management business is not independent of FUM. The difference between the theoretical world and the real world relates to transaction costs. This paper describes transaction costs, and considers factors likely to influence the level of these costs, before turning to the impact of size and investment style on excess returns.