Category Archive: Managed Funds

Sep 27

Bill Gross leaves PIMCO…might lead to a downgrade or two

Irrespective of the quality of the rest of the firm, and there is a lot of quality, with the departure of Mohammed El Erian at the start of the year and now Bill Gross, it doesn’t take much to guess there may be a little destabilisation at the PIMCO offices for a while. Whilst Bill …

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Jun 14

Market Cap Weighted Bond Indices…always tough to beat

The common criticism of market-cap weighted bond indices is that they are inefficient because they are obviously weighted towards those with the most debt. Thus indicating that the index potentially carries more risk than necessary, or than we may want in a portfolio, because those with the most debt carry greater default risk than those with very …

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May 05

Revisiting Asset Weighted Returns and the Lifecycle Fund

Given the start of MySuper this year, superannuation trustees have released numerous lifecycle funds to satisfy this new legislation. Whilst lifecycle funds have been popular among superannuation trustees, the investment and adviser community haven’t been so complimentary. Either way, lifecycle funds definitely have a place in the investment landscape and they provide an approach to …

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Apr 24

Absolute return investing…a nice goal but disappointment is likely

Absolute return investing, according to many definitions, is about getting positive returns irrespective of the overlying “market” return of whatever asset class the investor is being exposed to. This essentially means that any “absolute” returning investment needs to employ strategies that are independent of market direction. For example, if the market (and it can be …

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Mar 25

Mortgage Funds…still on the nose to me…but perhaps for different reasons than others

Over the last 12 months I’ve increasingly had inquiries about investing in mortgage funds. During the GFC, pretty much all liquid mortgage funds froze their investor’s funds so access was only available in periodic dribs and drabs and for many this process is still playing out. However, there are some new funds which have raised …

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Feb 25

Investment Fees…room to trim (wonkish)

When a financial adviser gains a investment client, on an ongoing basis that client pays fees for 3 main services/providers… Financial Adviser Investment Management…typically a fund manager Platform…for investment administration and reporting There can always be a fair amount of debate as to what the true margins are, particularly given some of the vertically integrated …

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Jan 14

Cliff’s Top 10 Peeves…and a couple of my own

I know this is possibly a little old now but one of my recent favourite articles is about to be published in the Financial Analysts Journal, My Top 10 Peeves, by Cliff Asness of AQR. Just click the article name to open and read for yourself. There are quite a few gems in there but …

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Jul 18

Surely the top Australian managers are “value” style…well, no!

Source: Delta Research & Advisory The above chart shows the performance of the value risk factor, which is simply calculated as the performance of the MSCI Australian Value index minus the performance of the MSCI Australian Growth index. With an ending value great than 15% than the starting value, clearly the 2013 financial year was …

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Jul 18

Past performance is no indication of…

  Source: Australian Financial Review The above table was published in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review (the sourced link takes you there but you may need a subscription) and Lazard Select Equity is the top performer over the last 12 months, and from the other funds in this table, its number one over the past 3 …

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Nov 29

Investing in Asia…a wild ride irrespective of its economy

I just did an interview with Money Magazine about investing in Asia and I have to admit that it is one of the most popular requests I’ve had in recent years from advisers and/or their clients. The main reason for the request is that investors want exposure to the strong Asian economic growth story (which …

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