Michael

Author's details

Date registered: January 28, 2012

Latest posts

  1. Random Thoughts on Cryptocurrencies at a Random time of the year — December 31, 2022
  2. Investment Philosophy … a short primer — June 6, 2022
  3. A Few ESG Investment Thoughts — June 28, 2021
  4. Approaching the Zero bound — May 22, 2020
  5. Worry about Valuations??? … yeah, a bit … — April 24, 2020

Most commented posts

  1. The disappearing credit spread…US now at pre-GFC levels — 6 comments
  2. ASX200 to go through 5000!!! — 4 comments
  3. A Must Read on “The Economic State of Australia” — 4 comments
  4. Tonight should be a turning point…either way — 3 comments
  5. Asset Allocation that considers Asset Weighted Returns — 3 comments

Author's posts listings

Nov 08

Merton’s Retirement Income Views…correct but its not a product solution…its an advice solution!!!

Categories:

Annuities, Financial Planning, Investment Strategy, Lifecycle Investing, Retirement Income, Superannuation

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Nobel laureate economist Robert Merton says David Murray’s Financial System Inquiry must fundamentally shift how Australia thinks about superannuation. He says the desire to maximise lump-sum balances at retirement is excessively risky; the focus should be on ensuring retirement income is enough to meet a desired standing of living. Source: AFR – 6 Nov 2014 …

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Oct 11

Australian Bonds and Equities…who would’ve thought?

Categories:

Economy, Equities, Fixed Interest, Government Bonds

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Source: Morningstar Direct, Delta Research & Advisory Over the last 5 years their performance has been pretty much the same…with the obvious exception that equities has bee a much much wilder ride. The reality of bonds in this global economy is that the outlook is still not that great from the major players (US, Japan, …

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Oct 07

SPIVA Report…strong evidence supporting active management in small caps…not much else

Categories:

Managed Funds

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My favourite simple performance report on active management came out today on the Australian market…it can be downloaded by clicking here. Unfortunately active management for the broad asset classes once again came up looking poor with an overwhelming proportion failing to outperform broad indices for Australian Shares, International Shares, Australian REITs, and Australian Bonds. An enormous …

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Sep 27

Bill Gross leaves PIMCO…might lead to a downgrade or two

Categories:

Fixed Interest, Managed Funds, Risk

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Irrespective of the quality of the rest of the firm, and there is a lot of quality, with the departure of Mohammed El Erian at the start of the year and now Bill Gross, it doesn’t take much to guess there may be a little destabilisation at the PIMCO offices for a while. Whilst Bill …

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Aug 22

Low Beta Anomaly…mispricing or risk?…(a little technical)

Categories:

Equities, Risk

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At the Portfolio Construction Conference 2014 I had the good fortune of being on stage to discuss Ryan Taliaferro’s presentation on the Low Beta Anomaly. Now I know I’ve opened up with a lot of jargon, so in plain english…the low beta anomaly  more or less says, shares that exhibit low levels of price volatility, on …

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2 comments

Aug 07

The disappearing credit spread…US now at pre-GFC levels

Categories:

Corporate Bonds, Economy, Fixed Interest, Investment Strategy

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Source: RBA I know this probably an overly simplistic way of looking at investment grade credit markets…but…the above chart is currently showing that US investment Grade credit spreads have declined to be in the ballpark of pre-GFC levels. Personally, the US economy is still relatively weak, albeit getting stronger, but I no longer believe this …

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6 comments

Aug 01

Ramblings about Unconstrained Debt Funds and Portfolio Construction…wonkish and a work in progress

Categories:

General Investment, Hedge Funds, Investment Strategy, Portfolio Construction

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I’ve just returned from a manager research trip in the UK where we visited a variety of strategies from a variety of managers and fortunately for me, with some of the leading thinkers and researchers in the advice industry (hat tip D&G … and I don’t mean Dolce and Gabbana). Several of the managers we …

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Jun 14

Market Cap Weighted Bond Indices…always tough to beat

Categories:

Fixed Interest, General Investment, Investment Strategy, Managed Funds

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The common criticism of market-cap weighted bond indices is that they are inefficient because they are obviously weighted towards those with the most debt. Thus indicating that the index potentially carries more risk than necessary, or than we may want in a portfolio, because those with the most debt carry greater default risk than those with very …

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May 16

Australian Bond Yield Curve…small budget led drop

Categories:

Economy, Fixed Interest, Government Bonds, Interest Rates, Yield Curve

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Source: RBA, Delta Research & Advisory At the e shorter end of the yield curve there hasn’t been a great deal of change. This is completely expected whilst the RBA has signaled its intention to maintain its cash rate at 2.5% for some time and, whilst not easy to tell, this yield curve suggests it …

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May 09

How often should we rebalance portfolios?

Categories:

General Investment, Investment Strategy

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It appears that the financial planning industry is a big believer in rebalancing but a little unsure as to how often. Some accept the automatic quarterly option, some rebalance at the client review, some annual, or even at 13 months to potentially reduce capital gains tax by taking advantage of the 50% CGT discount. Because the …

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