Whether we like it or not, the industry super fund sector has been one of the biggest competitors to financial advisers supporting retail clients. The combination of significant marketing budgets, strong headline returns and a near-clean-sheet through the Royal Commission has made the industry funds synonymous with superannuation in Australia. I have little doubt that…
One of the more interesting learnings from the pandemic so far has been the varying methods of communication used by political, media and industry leaders alike. What becomes even clearer, listening to far too many press conferences, is how important it is to use words that resonate with your audience. Nowhere is this fact more…
The Firetrail Absolute Return strategy has experienced a difficult few months after an extended period of outperformance. The long-short strategy, which seeks to balance its long and short positions to remove the so-called ‘market risk,’ had seen a number of stock-specific issues dragging performance lower before staging a recovery in August and September. Portfolio manager…
BHP has been the most talked-about company in recent weeks, for both good and bad reasons. Investors had first to digest the massive merger deal with Woodside Petroleum (ASX: WPL). Then it was the the decision to delist from the London Stock Exchange dual-listing and bring the listing home to the ASX. The highlight, no…
“Look through the macro” were the words used by portfolio manager Adam Chandler in a recent update on Claremont Global’s high-conviction global equity strategy. In a recent update delivered after the stellar US reporting season the group stressed the importance of “organic” rather than headline growth in its approach. Having invested through the crises in…
As covered in Ishan Dan’s article here, the Responsible Investment Association of Australia (RIAA)recently released their Benchmark Report for 2021. It is somewhat of a temperature check on the investment management industry with the RIAA increasingly standing out as the leader in responsible investment accreditation and assessment. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics some…
The environment has seemingly never been better for investors. After an incredible collapse in 2020 sharemarkets have staged a remarkable comeback, with the likes of the Nasdaq Composite Index near-doubling from their lowest 2020 levels. Buoyed by monetary policy, excess savings and in many cases, investors stuck at home with little else to do but…
Sharemarkets, excluding dividends, are now as much as 70 per cent higher than their March 2020 bottoms. Overseas the recovery has been even stronger, with the Nasdaq Composite Index having doubled over the same period, and the S&P 500 having delivered over 50 record closes already this year. Complacency is now kicking in, according to…
“Iron ore remains a commodity that polarises the market” according to Ausbil’s local investment team. Among the stable of strategies is the Ausbil Global Resources Fund which, as the name suggests, must have a strong view on almost every major commodity. 2021 has been dominated by talk of another commodity super cycle. Buoyed by massive…
After being a dirty word for close to a decade, ‘value’ investing has been back in vogue, for a few months at least anyway. Spurred on by the approval of COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020 the ‘recovery’ trade which involved increasing exposure to cyclical sectors like energy and banks has paid off in the short-term…
