Opinion

With markets at all-time highs and term deposits paying 5 per cent, the focus needs to shift away from relative returns and back towards positioning for “consistent, absolute” returns that accommodate present market risks.

The shift in focus from financial advisers to research consultants continues apace, both here and abroad, as asset managers follow the great money management migration.

In the Dixon’s inquiry vertical integration will not only be writ large, but it will have thousands of victims’ names attached to it. The practice has run relatively unfettered for years, but that may be about to change.

The benefits of alternative investments are clear, but rapid growth in the product set has made the optimal use of alternatives in portfolios unclear. As markets reach all-time highs, it may be time to re-think how we treat the asset class.

The traditional method of protecting client portfolios from drift remains entirely valid. It’s ostensibly cheaper to run portfolios without managed accounts, but it does take more time to do so and probably takes on more risk.

The solutions to practice inefficiency might be completely foreign, but the challenges of service delivery have a habit of changing, so the methods employed to meet those challenges need to evolve in tandem.

An eventual market correction won’t necessarily be marked by its depth, the famed British investor writes, but by its speed. Caution may come at a price, but Ruffer believes that cost will take on a different perspective by the time it’s been paid in full.

The government’s line on its proposed changes to advice in super is incongruous with the actual changes. You can’t re-do the language embedded in the SIS Act while denying that anything will be different.

The assets family offices invest in haven’t changed much but the ways they’re investing in them have, according to BNY Mellon Wealth. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies are seeing more interest as a new generation takes the reins.

By reneging on long-standing employment deals, AMP has again given the impression that it has welched on an existing agreement once it realised the deal wouldn’t work out in its favour. Do that repeatedly and people stop wanting to do business with you.

Lazy portfolios can be overconcentrated, overdiversified, full of yesterday’s winners, devoid of structured asset allocation, full of misallocated positions or agnostic to markets and client expectations. All of this is happening more than it should.

First Sentier’s decision to close a number of strategies and pivot towards private markets handily illustrates the pressures facing the Australian funds management scene – and the new period of competition into which it is now entering.