Dushko Bajic, portfolio manager with Australian equities manager, Orion Asset Management, discusses the risk-on, risk-off trades that are rolling through the market, which stocks offer the best prospects, and the "expensive defensives" best avoided...

We asked the fund research houses - how much (if any) of an international equities allocation should be hedged, assuming a 10-year investment timeframe?

This Academy Seminar debates the following three topics in a Socratic learning environment: Investment fables - part 1; Scenarios and their investment implications - part 2; and, Hot topic: Greece is the word - but what are the investment implications?

Will the Euro exist in ten years? Why doesn't Germany leave the EMU? How will Euro confidence improve? What structural changes must occur in Australia? Do free markets work? Will QE3 actually help? Has the world reached the limits of GDP growth?

Conference 2011 helped delegates better understand the key macro AND micro issues and what they mean for investor portfolios. This Resources Kit features videos, presentations, papers and podcasts for the 36 sessions featuring more than 40 investment experts...

The Conference Masterclass is an optional one-day, classroom/workshop-style program presented by selected subject matter experts. The emphasis is on an active-learning environment featuring small, high-quality peer group interaction where in-depth Socratic debate and active discussion is encouraged (indeed, expected!).

This white paper contends that investment in emerging market sovereign debt continues to look attractive and investors should carefully consider adding emerging market sovereign bonds to their asset allocations and revisit the proportional weighting of the asset class as it continues to mature...

The 2011 Portfolio Construction Forum Conference helped delegates better understand the key macro AND micro issues and what they mean for investor portfolios, to help them successfully navigate through the woods AND the trees. In this final Critical Issues Forum session, selected PortfolioConstruction Forum Academy members, Longview's Chris Watling and Tim Farrelly, principal of farrelly's Investment Strategy, give their key takeouts from the two-day program...

In this Critical Issues Forum session at the 2011 PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference, Amanda Gillespie, of fund research house Lonsec, provides a practical guide to integrating EM exposures in portfolios, including whether an active or passive approach is best, and what type of exposure is appropriate for different investors...

In this Critical Issues Forum session at the 2011 PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference, Dr Michael Hasenstab looks at how monetary policy and geopolitical events are impacting the challenges and opportunities facing global bond investors. Chris Watling then argues we're in a long-term, secular equities bear cycle, and what that means for equities investing...

Why China's leaders will struggle to maintain economic growth (the main source of Communist Party legitimacy) while managing the growing expectations of its population...

In this Critical Issues Forum session at the 2011 PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference, Peter Elston looks at to the appropriate use of active share to measure how active an active fund manager REALLY is, before Scott Bennett re-visits the case for active management and the characteristics that can help discern skill from luck...

In this Critical Issues Forum session at the 2011 PortfolioConstruction Forum Conference, Del Stafford highlights highlights the current and emerging applications of ETFs in portfolios. Scott Burns discusses the intricacies of ETFs as they move farther away from the ETFs that typify the Australian ETF landscape...

Dr Woody Brock, Alan Brown (Schroders), Gregor Andrade (AQR Capital), Hamish Douglass (Magellan), Chris Selth (Five Oceans) and Chris Watling (Longview), discuss the key macro and micro issues we cannot of afford to lose sight of when constructing portfolios...

The debt side of portfolios used to be the easy part of portfolio construction - but not these days! This Sector Insight summarises key themes and ratings from the recent Australian fixed interest sector review by Standard & Poor's Fund Services...

There are three key reasons why it is prudent to reduce commodities allocations and redistribute some of that allocation into equities - and in particular, western equities...

We asked: What, in your firm's view, is one of the big challenges facing the Australian funds research industry at present?

Australian residential property does not behave like other investment classes. Why? And what does that mean for forecasting returns?

The Academy Winter Seminar 2011 debates the following three topics in a Socratic learning environment: How to build a framework for assessment of niche exposures in a portfolio; How to incorporate value strategies in equity portfolios; and, How to analyse investment scenarios and their implications for portfolios...

Post 1 July, New Zealand's financial advisers will be held to far greater account for the portfolios they build for clients - and this comes at a time when global investment markets are more volatile than at any other time in the past 20 years, and likely to remain so for years. Investment Symposium 2011 will help you better understand the pillars for building better quality investor portfolios...