23 May 2019

Being smart-er with beta

by Arian Neiron, Managing Director

A flood of money has rushed into smart beta ETFs in recent years, which now hold a total of US$800 billion in assets globally as of year-end 2018, according to Morningstar data. This represents a growth rate of roughly 30% per year since 2012. The challenge for investors is to do it smarter.

09 May 2019

Discounts should come with a warning

by Arian Neiron, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific

Just because it’s on the discount rack, doesn’t make it a good investment.

25 April 2019

Quality: You can’t fake it

by Russel Chesler, Director, Investments & Portfolio Strategy

While few investors dispute the validity of quality investing in equities, the definitions and descriptors used to define quality vary. The challenge for investors is to identify real quality stocks from the fakes.

11 April 2019

Invest like the Future Fund

by Russel Chesler, Director, Investments & Portfolio Strategy

The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is presented to recording artists for quality albums in the alternative genre at the Grammy Awards. Winners have included Sinead O’Connor, REM, U2, Nirvana, Coldplay and David Bowie. Hardly a list of unknowns. This leads to the question, when does alternative become mainstream?

The same question could be asked in investment circles. Some so-called ‘alternative assets’ should now be considered mainstream. Institutional investors have looked past the label for property and infrastructure but an ongoing miscategorisation as alternative assets could mean they are underrepresented in most retail investors’ portfolios.