Opinion

Leading global ‘distressed debt’ manager Howard Marks and his Oaktree Capital firm are well-known for their sometimes combative and private equity approach to investment. The firm has increased its work in Australia in recent years after achieving some success buying-out and breaking-up the Blue Sky Alternative Asset Management empire, and more recent involvements with Virgin…

I’m often asked by clients and industry figures about Datt Capital’s position on ESG. For a number of reasons, I have difficulty giving a black-and-white answer. It’s fair to say that ESG, or its shorthand – ethical investing – has become part of the funds management zeitgeist, aided in part by much research pointing to…

Crystal balls and fortune cookies Is history an investment guide, the rhyme not repeat version? Those that offer advice on asset allocation rely heavily on past data to support their view of future returns. At its simplest there is mean reversion to trend. Perhaps the challenge is what trend to revert to. There are a…

This year’s Sohn Hearts & Minds Conference, an annual one-day event that brings the finance and investment community together, saw a select group of fund managers share their best stock ideas for the year ahead. The recurring theme without a doubt was COVID-19. But grief and tragedy aside, COVID-19 has forced us to go digital….

In a recent podcast, Aidan Farrell, Director of Global Small Cap Equities at Eaton Vance discusses investment opportunities presented by the global small-cap sector for Australian investors. He highlights: The MSCI World Small Cap Index captures small cap representation across 23 Developed Markets countries. With 4,203 constituents, the index covers approximately 14% of the free…

Financial services software house, Calastone, recently released their Global Investor Behaviours and Attitudes White Paper. It is the culmination of a survey of 1,800 people across six nations including the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Germany, with a particular focus on ‘taking the temperature’ or retail investors. One point that seems to…

A major milestone for Pfizer On 9 November 2020, Pfizer announced that its vaccine candidate, developed in collaboration with BioNTech, was more than 90 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis. After discussion with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer…

While the big tech stocks have driven global as well as US share market growth for several years, questions are emerging about how long this will last; and where do investors go when the world is also awash with “low-to-no” interest rates? In a series of four webinars for fund managers with which it partners,…

This week we caught up with Michael Rees-Evans of Libertas Wealth Consulting. Michael has an impressive career spanning big business and boutique, spending time with Price Waterhouse and Accenture as a management consultant before embarking on a career in financial advice in 2002 with Hillross. Today he leads Libertas Wealth Consulting in Lane Cove. We…

With advisers and investors faced with what appears to be zero-bound interest rates for at least the next three years, the already fast-growing alternative fixed interest (or ‘credit’) sector is sure to see more demand in the months ahead. The sub-asset-class has become increasingly attractive due to its higher, non-discretionary income payments and suitability for…

Australia is facing yet another round of export bans after Chinese authorities knocked back tonnes of lobsters, timber from Queensland, and barley from a second grain grower. Without warning, paid goods that had arrived at ports were sent back in what is known as a ‘soft ban’ that falls outside of current trade agreements. Authorities…

This is an edited version of the full article, which is available here. The article pre-dated the US Election.   Executive summary Societies and governments around the world are looking at a COVID-19 vaccine as the panacea that will enable the world to recover, reconnect and regain our way of life. Since the genetic code…