The 7th annual Portfolio Construction Forum took place in what for many professionals would be considered the eye of a financial hurricane. The news over the prior 12 months had been awful in virtually every domestic financial sector, and the world was fighting through a global credit crisis that had replaced the days of easy money and leverage with a liquidity crisis and flight to quality that threatened international returns for the next half-decade. Delegates arrived with a single mission: to deconstruct the root causes of the domestic and global meltdown, and figure out how to help their clients ride out the storm...

The presentation and underlying research paper answer the questions facing advisers now: What are the risks of cash and fixed income investing? Where are the opportunities in the new world of fixed income investing? How do I explain these to my clients?

This presentation and underlying research paper examine why diversification remains a key reason for including commodity assets in a portfolio, and argues that a long-short strategy that provides commodity exposure allows investors to take advantage of volatility and provides a positive absolute return for a portfolio...

This presentation and underlying research paper examine the case for investing in emerging market equities from the perspective of an Australian investor, arguing that emerging markets should be viewed as a relatively risky equity sub-class that justifies its position in portfolios as a source of additional returns, rather than as a diversification opportunity...

This presentation and underlying research paper address which real estate asset classes will perform best over the next five to seven years and why...

This presentation and underlying research paper presents analysis suggesting we have entered a fourth wave of inflation and strong commodity price growth that may continue for the next 10 to 12 years and therefore investments in agriculture are becoming increasingly attractive...

This presentation and underlying research paper examine whether we can continue to blindly rely on central banks to win the fight against inflation for us, or is it time that we looked at defensive asset allocation as a way to inflation proof our portfolios?

This presentation and research paper outline the broad range of alternative investments available and some issues to consider in assessing listed and unlisted vehicles, and the key portfolio construction questions posed by non-institutional investors...

Awareness is at an all-time high for investors and managers with regard to eco investment themes. This presentation and underlying research paper aim to highlight how investors might access these themes and how they would fit into an overall investment portfolio...

Risk profiling is generally agreed to be an important part of the financial planning process – and, yet, it is something that generates large measures of skepticism, controversy and, from time to time, attention from the regulators. Ensuring a portfolio is within the bounds of both a client's risk tolerance and risk capacity is critical - just getting one right is not good enough...