According to a new study by Cerulli Associates, while mutual funds remain a central part of US financial advisers' businesses, they are losing ground to hedge funds, private equity funds, ETFs, and, in particular, SMAs. And 60% of younger advisers plan on increasing their usage of non-traditional products...

As advisers strive for lower management fess and better performing investments for their clients, LICs have emerged as a potentially inexpensive and attractive alternative. But what are they, what are the advantages, and more importantly, what should you look for - and look out for...

Hedge funds do not provide the benefits advisers are led to believe, according to an article in the January 2004 issue of the US Journal of Financial Planning...

While traditionally agribusiness is a topic that clients tend to think about only as tax time approaches, agribusiness investments can play a greater part in portfolio construction than merely being a tax consideration. We asked two agribusiness research houses for their opinion about individual projects...

Contrary to popular wisdom, Australia's agricultural sector is not a burnt out, sunset industry, said Dr Bruce Kefford, executive director agriculture with the Victoria Department of Primary Industries, speaking at the recent Lonsec Agribusiness Conference...

While the "noise" about farming is that it's hard, risky and drought ridden, Research House AAG says the perception that our farmers are struggling is wrong. The top performers in Agribusiness are quietly getting on with the job and so don't provide "good copy" for the press. Australia lags the world in realising the opportunities in this sector, agribusiness research house AAG contends...

When will the Australian Taxation office issue product rulings, and under what circumstances does it withdraw them? These were two of the issues canvassed by Gary Hammersley, national business manager with the ATO when speaking at the recent Lonsec Agribusiness Conference. Hammersley contends the ATO tries to look at issues from the taxpayers perspective...

How does agribusiness perform when compared with other asset classes? It was the hot question of the day at the recent Lonsec Agribusiness Conference...

While most financial advisers at a recent Lonsec workshop on agribusiness agreed that agribusiness can play an important role in portfolios, they also expressed that there are many downsides to the current crop of agribusiness offerings available to retail investors, and that many offerings simply don't meet their client's needs...

So you accept that your clients should have an exposure to Asia - but should that be a standalone allocation, or is it best to leave the allocation to Asia to an international equity fund managers?

Research opinion on Asian equity funds was thin on the ground from research houses, with Lonsec, S&P, and IWL the noteable exceptions, while Zenith provided a coherent rationale for why it doesn't rate individual funds in the sector, and doesn't think advisers should either. Interestingly, given they also research direct equities, both IWL and Lonsec both agreed that the use of managed funds for international equities exposure is a preferred strategy over direct equity investments...

For the first three quarters of the year, the Nikkei Index is up 19 per cent. Is the Japanese market beginning to turn around, or is it another false start?

Asian funds have been getting a fair bit of attention lately, which is hardly surprising with six-month returns of 20% to 30%. Many commentators expect Asia to stay on the boil, but there's varying among fund managers active in region as to which regions, countries, and sectors hold the most promise...

From its low point of October 2002, the technology sector (as measured by the NASDAQ) has recoded a rise of 70 per cent. So when AMP Henderson Global Investor's head of investment strategy, Shane Oliver says technology stocks have been the star performer this year, it is something of an understatement. The real question is: can that performance be repeated going forward?

The bigger the better, right? Fund size, that is. The sentiment is understandable, but those adhering to it might be disappointed. Conventional wisdom in the funds industry suggests that the larger the fund, the harder it is to achieve excess returns, and a recent paper from Lazard suggests this is more true for growth managers, than value managers...