Lonsec have a reasonable investment strategy paper released today (subscription required) suggesting one of the best ways of managing equity market risk is to use variable beta managers. A variable beta manager is a manager who has the ability to significantly change their exposure to the market depending on their view. So if a variable …
Category Archive: Investment Strategy
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Jan 19
“Market Neutral Strategies as part of the Equity Allocation”…huh???
I read the following comment this morning in the Money Management daily enews…Market Neutral Funds Underrated: Zenith… There is demonstrable portfolio improvement to be had from allocating to market neutral strategies as part of the equity allocation… That says to me that if you want to improve your equities part of the portfolio then replace …
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Jan 15
Keep art and collectables out of superannuation
In recent times I’ve seen quite a few articles about investing in art and other collectables in your superannuation fund (I guess in response to weak sharemarket returns), and its something that has always disturbed me as this is one gutsy investment strategy for the well informed let alone your typical investor. One of my …
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Jan 14
Buy-hold strategy may have had its day…I don’t think so
Page 31 of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) today has an article suggesting “that the traditional buy-hold approach to owning shares is dead”…full text, with subscription can be found here. The article’s stated reason for buy-hold is that “in the long run, markets always go up and will provide investors with a good return on …
Dec 25
Corporate Credit…maybe
Source: RBA Despite the above chart being a few weeks old, the above chart shows credit spreads have widened significantly over the past few months such that at the end of November, both A and BBB rated corporates have spreads in excess of 300bps. When you consider that the historic default risk is much much …
Dec 19
A few too many ‘China Hard Landing’ stories for my comfort
I’ve read a few too many times how Australia is well positioned because of its exporting links to China and how this should help us escape any serious economic issues flowing out of Europe. Obviously our markets haven’t quite agreed with that with bond yields dropping massively over recent months and our equity market continuing …
Nov 07
My day at the Portfolio Construction Academy
Last Friday I attended a day long program with around 80 researchers, financial advisers, and other financial professionals as part of a 5 day portfolio construction program run by Graham Rich over a 12 month period. Friday’s program was divided into three parts… Investment Fables Asset Allocation using Scenario Modelling Greece Each part went for …
Nov 03
Australian Government Bond Yields…more rate cuts to come?
Source: RBA In just 3 business days the yield curve has dropped down to where it was at the end of September where markets had experienced eight weeks of gloom and doom. Mind you, a lot happened in the three days to the end of yesterday…including the Greek’s putting significant doubt in the Euro rescue …
Oct 29
Australian Equities Fund Manager Style over time
A couple of weeks ago I did a post showing Fama French 3 Factor analysis on some of the leading Australian Equities fund managers. The analysis covered returns from June 2003 to September 2011 so it obviously covered a mixture of markets…bull bear and sideways. I just completed the same analysis but this time I …
Oct 14
Australian Equity Manager’s Investment Style…maybe not all true to label
Its been a little while since I wrote anything on managed fnds. Yesterday I attended a series of presentations at Griffith University whereby undergrad students presented results of their previous few months working in financial services. Some of the results were very interesting including how many global fund managers demonstrated a different investment style than …