This week in Forum Fodder: Nouriel Roubini - The makings of a 2020 financial crisis; Tassos Stassopoulos - Culture not companies dictate investment trends; Graham Rich - the Forum’s submission to FASEA on CPD; Ron Bird - Small portfolios are beautiful; Gopi Karunakaran - Bonds no longer a reliable risk diversifier.

In the 1950s, Markowitz showed that low or negative correlation is the secret sauce that makes diversification work. While his maths stacks up, the way it is often abused, does not.

As we mark the decennial of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, there are still ongoing debates about the causes and consequences of the GFC. By 2020, conditions will be ripe for a new financial crisis.

The KangaNews Corporate Debt Summit 2018 (12 Sep 2018) has been assessed and accredited by Portfolio Construction Forum for Continuing Education (CE/CPD) hours. Delegates must confirm their attendance in order to receive CE accreditation.

Portfolio Construction Forum's 23-page submission to FASEA in response to its proposed guidance on future CPD explains why the proposal is fundamentally flawed, and falls well short of any reasonable community expectation of FASEA and what drove its formation.

Markowitz informed us of the risk-reduction advantages of diversification. But just how diversified does an investor have to be to realise almost all of the benefits of diversification?

The Conexus Equities Summit 2018 (11 September 2018) has been assessed and accredited by Portfolio Construction Forum for Forum CE hours. Delegates must confirm their attendance in order to receive CE acceditation.

The Conexus Group Insurance Summit (28 August 2018) has been assessed and accredited by Portfolio Construction Forum for Forum CE hours. Delegates must confirm their attendance in order to receive CE acceditation.

This week in Forum Fodder: Graham Rich - FASEA fails on CPD; Amin Rajan - Crystal balls; Rudi Minbatiwala - Future-proof portfolios achievable; Tony Crescenzi - Guard against pessimism; Stephen Anness - Electric cars not game changing.

The fallacy that an inverted yield curve "predicts" the onset of recessions is alive and well. Many investors believe the curve will invert in 2019, precipitating a recession. But a flattening of the yield curve need not imply a recession.

In the cyber world today, we are somewhere around World War I. There are more than 30 nations with effective cyber forces. Practitioners need to understand the threat cyber weapons pose to markets and investments.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) invests heavily in high technology research. While the world will certainly benefit from the PRC's technological ambition, it also has challenging implications.

Machine learning algorithms are no match for the human brain when it comes to deciding how investment portfolios should be constructed.

Investors like to have their cake and eat it - i.e., they like investment returns (the higher the better) but dislike volatility (particularly negative returns). It is possible to engineer investment returns that meet those requirements.

A disciplined, scenarios-based approach to determining your views on the outlook for markets and the asset allocation implications can help future-proof portfolios. This hypothetical Investment Committee meeting considers the asset allocation implications of three scenarios.

The Australian (and global economy) is facing decades of significant technological change that will reshape how we work, where we work, and how we relate to each other economically and politically.

Harry Markowitz called diversification "the only free lunch in finance". But it can’t be taken for granted as not all diversification is good. The answer will often lie with good rules of thumb.

Investors should treat foreign currency as an asset class in its own right, considering both short- and long-term currency risks, as well as where the best return opportunities lie.

Unconstrained strategies can be supportive in both maximising portfolio returns and reducing risk but a clear philosophy and framework for apportioning risk in unconstrained portfolios is key.

Investors need to entirely rethink their processes, assumptions and research approach, to focus on the cultures of consumers in different markets. Only by thinking like new brands themselves, can investors identify and invest in the next powerful emerging trend.