What is to become of all those office buildings and retail stores? They will be replaced, of course, at least in investor portfolios. The property sector is already pivoting to the new opportunities. If there’s an investment sector which has more than its fair share of disruption due to the impact of covid-19 it has…
Gold has intrigued investors for almost as long as its existence, first as a store of wealth and currency and now as, well, what? Asset consultancy Frontier has taken a look at gold’s worth to professional investors. And it’s not about an inflation hedge. Frontier’s Chris Trevillyan, director of investment strategy, and Nicholas Thomas, senior…
The ageing population has many implications for financial advisers – more than the growing numbers either transitioning to or already in retirement. There is also the matter of dementia. The law allows an adviser to assume a person’s decision-making ability, but the law, like financial services, is complex. With either discipline, a wrong action can…
Rob Prugue, well-known investment manager and a former regional chief executive of Lazard Asset Management, has called on the financial services industry to appreciate the need for extra awareness of people’s mental state during the current lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne. Prugue, the founder and director of People Reaching Out to People (PROP), a mental…
Joseph Lai, the top-performing Asia equities manager who resigned from Platinum Asset Management on December 29 last year, is set to join Fidante’s new boutique, Ox Capital. He will reportedly link up with another long-term emerging markets specialist, Doug Huey. The two had worked together at Platinum, where Huey was an investment analyst, prior to…
A confluence of largely unrelated trends is prompting advisers to rethink their former reticence about emerging markets for all but their better-heeled clients. They are taking a whole-world approach. According to Jorden Brown, Capital Group’s Sydney-based managing director in charge of financial intermediaries, advisers have long accepted the investment fundamentals of emerging markets (EM), such…
If investors ever had any concerns about whether the Perennial ‘Better Future’ strategy was giving up any potential returns through its ESG orientation, the actual results should put them to rest. The strategy, available through a standard unlisted unit trust, the listed active managed fund vehicle (ASX: IMPQ) and mandates on request, has averaged 14.7…
Like all big investors, global asset managers have to have a view on China. Most also have a view on alternatives, even if seen only as competition to traditional investment management. Against this backdrop, UBS Asset Management held its inaugural global investor conference, virtually, last month (May 19-20), in which many discussions inevitably led to…
Thematically focussed funds have been the big winners in fund flows in the past three years, but most themes have turned out to be fads, new research shows. According to Morningstar’s latest ‘Global Thematic Funds Landscape Report’, link here, over the three years through March 2021, collective assets under management in the 1,349 thematic funds…
While the buzz surrounding its introduction just over ten years ago has abated, an increasing body of research is building on the value of robo-advice. A new paper shows the benefits can be wide-reaching. More than a marketing tool for index managers or various asset allocators and other agents, robo-advice, when properly constructed with a…
