Many assume there is a trade-off between investing for financial returns and social impact. This is false and misleading. There is a synergy between profit and purpose.

Investing is supposed to be about the incremental replacement of human capital with financial capital over the long term. But today's environment and our behavioural biases conspire against such a pure case.

As the Australian bond market grows and sub-sectors emerge, investor must ask – is my defensive allocation true-to-label?

Research suggests that we have remarkably little insight into our future preferences. So a challenge of goals-based investing is that we save towards a goal that isn't what we want when the time comes.

Decumulation requires a tradeoff between preserving capital and obtaining income. A very simple "inverted withdraw rate" approach may be a better approach than the traditional 4% rule.

The "best" retirement income strategy may be very different depending on whether you measure based on wealth, spending, probabilities of success, magnitudes of failure, or utility functions that weigh both the upside and downside risks.

Setting an appropriate spending level is one of the most crucial tasks for retirees. Spend too much and risk utter penury down the track. Be too conservative and the client spends their remaining years in unnecessary hardship.

Many have spoken of the significant risks funds carry with Australian equities exposures. So I thought I'd check the evidence on the influence of equities on multi-asset portfolios.

One of the most important decisions facing retirees is working out how much can be “safely” spent without the risk of exhausting capital. This session reviewed the different approaches to create a formal, written spending policy.

Presented in a format that incorporates a game, this workshop explored the risk factors that drive retirement portfolio outcomes.

Risk profiling is entirely broken. The key to understanding clients is in analysing their actions, not their words, or answers to a risk questionnaire.

India’s demographic dividend creates a significant market opportunity for corporates operating within the ecosystem. But size really does matter, leading to the potential for unparalleled revenue growth.

Central bankers successfully tamed inflation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Persistently low inflation is the new problem. With markets complacent about the inflation outlook, signs of inflation could create a scare.

Investors are slowly awakening to the threat that negative interest rates globally pose to their goals. Diversified funds need a higher mix of growth assets, and TAA should be applied.

The currency exposure embedded in foreign equity portfolios exposes portfolios to a great deal of noise. Used productively, the opportunity it represents can be captured as the ultimate "alternative asset".

US private market home loans – income producing, low credit risk, low volatility assets that can generate a stable flow of monthly income - are one of many opportunities to consider for portfolios.

It's a sad fact that not everyone adjusts well to retirement. It's estimated that about one third of retirees have problems adapting after leaving full time work. So why do some people fail to adapt? A Dynamic Resource Model provides a potential solution.

Each panelist outlined the high conviction idea they agreed with most from the prior day, and the portfolio construction implications. Then delegates worked in tables to determine the same.

Our Symposium 2016 Faculty debated two high conviction ideas from the first day's program - firstly, the idea that delegates agreed with most and then, the idea delegates disagreed with most.

While record low interest rates worldwide (negative in many countries) mean low returns on government bonds, it doesn't necessarily mean low returns across the board. This is not a time to be fearful.