Defensive assets

We spoke with Stephen Coltman, Investment Manager within the Alternatives team at abrdn on the growing importance of portfolio hedging amid growing uncertainty and investor unrest. During times of falling equity markets, rising volatility and elevated drawdowns, Coltman is tasked with delivering positive returns. Speaking about his strategy and overlay, he says, “It’s really designed…

Australian investors’ appetite for equities dropped in the first quarter of 2022, especially for international shares which have dropped more than Australian shares. Following record inflows to managed equity funds in 2021, the value of inflows between January and March 2022 plunged to $1.2 billion, falling from a quarterly average of $3.8 billion last year,…

Markets are poised for more damage after a remarkable bull run, and Orbis Australia believes now is the time when contrarianism will prove its worth. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” famously wrote Charles Dickens in “A…

“Bonds won’t exist in 10 years,” were the words of Vimal Gor, one of the most well-known and respected fixed income managers in the country. He was announcing his departure from Pendal Group, where he had managed as much as $22 billion in fixed income strategies over a multi-decade career. In recent years, Gor has…

Speak with any financial adviser today, and it’s likely that their biggest investment concern isn’t related to the equity component of their portfolio. After two years of strong markets, most are sitting on strong returns despite the recent uptick in volatility. With the near-consensus view that interest rates are set to move higher sooner rather…

Traditional fixed income allocations, whether in the form of corporate or government bonds have been on the nose in 2022 and most of 2021 for that matter. The threat of inflation and associated rate hikes led many to rename the sector as ‘fixed loss’ rather than fixed income. Andrew Canobi, co-Portfolio Manager of the flexible…

The surprises over the last 12 months should give some indication of the significant uncertainty facing investors in 2022, with forecasts for global GDP growth and inflation having a high chance of coming in well above or below consensus. Market expectations for 2022 have moved significantly in recent months, on the whole pointing to a…

Specialist alternatives investment research firm Evergreen Consultants has released a research report on AAM Investment Group’s Diversified Agriculture Fund (ADAF), attaching a “Highly Commended” rating. This is the highest rating in the rating scale, meaning the fund has scored consistently very well across all areas of Evergreen Ratings’ research and analysis framework. As a result,…

While all eyes remain focused squarely on whether inflation is “transitory” or not, “persistent” is the adjective that value manager Allan Gray uses to describe the position of the equity market. Speaking in its monthly update, the firm’s Australian managing director and chief investment officer Simon Mawhinney flagged the “exuberance for some stocks and disdain…

“Learning to live with COVID will be the major theme of 2022,” according to Ken Leech, chief investment officer of leading fixed income manager Western Asset. But not necessarily in the way we think. As the Omicron variant ravages Australia and other parts of the developed world, Leech highlights continuing travel restrictions and lower vaccination…

If we are truly honest about the state of the Australian investment industry when it comes to alternatives, we were very much a backwater for many years. That is, at least, at the mass market, retail, or wholesale level. For many years, the best alternative assets advisers could access were the so-called “black boxes” of…

Leading thematic manager, Capital Group, is confident that the market downturn of 2020 was short-lived and entirely related to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to vice-chairman and president, Rob Lovelace.   Expanding on this point, he says that the “the powerful upswing in equity prices since then is simply a continuation of the bull market we’ve…