We’ve all seen various developments in product design from hedge funds to long/short to real return approaches, and then there’s the increased focus on tactical and dynamic asset allocation. You would expect all of this to lead to different drivers of portfolio risk…i.e. away from traditional asset class drivers to market timing, investment selection, and …
Category Archive: Portfolio Construction
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Sep 20
A widely accepted portfolio construction flaw
The typical approach to portfolio construction in the world of financial planning is a 2-step process (of course, this is after the desired risk and return characteristics are settled). The first step is setting asset allocation and the second is investment selection where most of the industry chooses to select from a variety of managed fund strategies. …
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Aug 26
Real Return funds…lacking real-ity?
What a fascinating investment world its been over the past few months. We’ve had concerns about Greece exiting the Euro, commodity price crashes, a Chinese sharemarket crash and now some of the biggest developed economy sharemarket declines since the dark days of the GFC. Volatility has been somewhat benign for a long time thanks to …
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Feb 21
A few simple thoughts on a few not so simple markets
Following are my recent thoughts around markets with many charts to support these views. These views are far from complete but do represent a reasonable summary at this point in time. Income Assets Source: RBA, Delta Research & Advisory The above left chart suggests the market believes the cash rate is heading towards 1.5% …
Aug 01
Ramblings about Unconstrained Debt Funds and Portfolio Construction…wonkish and a work in progress
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 …
May 05
Revisiting Asset Weighted Returns and the Lifecycle Fund
Given the start of MySuper this year, superannuation trustees have released numerous lifecycle funds to satisfy this new legislation. Whilst lifecycle funds have been popular among superannuation trustees, the investment and adviser community haven’t been so complimentary. Either way, lifecycle funds definitely have a place in the investment landscape and they provide an approach to …
Jun 14
To find alpha, first define it
A couple of months ago I presented at a Portfolio Construction Academy forum of around 70 financial planners and researchers about constructing investment portfolios and fund manager assessment using risk factors. From what I can tell the session went quite well and much to my relief the feedback was quite positive. Following the presentation I …
Feb 11
A quick look at equity and bond markets
Source: www.incrediblecharts.com As the above chart shows the Australian Sharemarket has had a stellar run over the last 3 months. Not a hint of volatility just upwards she goes from around 4350 to just short of 5000…throw in a very small number of dividends and its a superb return. Newspaper talk has suggested that there is a …
Nov 29
Investing in Asia…a wild ride irrespective of its economy
I just did an interview with Money Magazine about investing in Asia and I have to admit that it is one of the most popular requests I’ve had in recent years from advisers and/or their clients. The main reason for the request is that investors want exposure to the strong Asian economic growth story (which …
Nov 09
Beating the Inefficient Fixed Interest Benchmark
Its widely agreed that size-weighted fixed interest benchmarks are a poor construct when it comes to creating the optimal fixed interest portfolio. The logic from most people goes along the lines of “why would I accept the index as optimal and overweight my portfolio with the biggest issuers because they are the riskiest and more likely to default …