Fears that China's economy is teetering on the edge of collapse are exaggerated. But it is slowing. And the slowdown will inevitably highlight problems that until now have remained largely hidden, triggering fresh bouts of market volatility.

If you want to understand falling oil prices, forget Chinese consumption and focus on Middle East production. And, if you want to understand the world economy, forget about stock markets - focus on the fact that cheap oil always boosts global growth.

This week's market correction is long overdue. It is also not over because the true underlying problems are much more serious than the commonly cited causes. And, at last, markets are teaching Xi and Li who in fact is the boss.

Changing client behaviour was an essential part of a financial planner's skills, yet that part of the job had not been approached with the same level of scientific rigour as a planner's technical skills.

It's a paradox in financial planning that the so-called "hard" skills are actually the easiest to master, while the so-called "soft" skills are often the hardest.

There are two possible outcomes from the extreme debt levels in the global economy - high inflation or long-term below trend growth. The key dilemma is how to minimise this uncertainty and return dispersion.

Consumers and the energy industry are at a crossroad. Customer choices are impacting different parts of the energy supply chain, but energy networks themselves are insulated from emerging technologies.

A QMTV (quality, momentum, transition and value) framework can help investors manage buy, hold and sell decisions through various cycles and provide a crossroad signal.

Consumers and the energy industry are both at a crossroads - hence the exclusion of some parts of the electricity supply chain from the investible universe of low-risk global listed infrastructure securities.

Six years into a bull market, Australian equity values are beginning to look stretched. But large divergences in valuations across sectors are creating great opportunities for truly active managers.

The increasing concentration of the Australian stock market indices is mirrored by the concentration of the Australian funds management industry. What does this mean for alpha generation?

Investors can substantially improve the risk/return characteristics of their strategic asset allocation by considering not only the classic equity premium, but also other premiums present in the equity market.

Infrastructure has gained greater focus in recent years, with investors drawn to its defensive characteristics. But infrastructure investing requires a tight definition to deliver the defensive attributes that investors are targeting.

The longer interest rates stay negative, the more distortions will appear in financial markets. Certain trends are already in place which could ultimately lead to severe distortions.

Investors should not buy stocks merely based on their volatility (or other risk) characteristics, but also take into account factors that are known to have a large impact on returns, such as valuation and momentum.

There are three escapes the Fed had to make in order to declare its mission a success - escape from a liquidity trap, escape from quantitative easing, and, escape from the zero bound. Only the last remains. Will it achieve its great escape? Probably.

Although it is widely appreciated that past performance is not a guide to future returns, it is less appreciated that past diversification is not a guide to future risk.

While the debate over the value of active investment management has intensified in recent years, the outperformance of boutique managers over non-boutiques and indices has been overlooked.

High active share is often profiled as "better" but such portfolios can exhibit risk concentrations which may lead to volatile return streams. Low active share funds should not be excluded from asset allocators’ tool kit.

The rise of liquid alternatives not only marks an improvement on traditional fund of hedge funds, it also makes a hedge fund allocation a genuine competitor with other onshore absolute return solutions.