Ethical investment inflows have doubled in 2019. But, the Wall Street Journal highlights a problem near to my heart: ethical investing is not the same to everyone. Funds with a focus on socially responsible investing are enjoying a record year of inflows. But many such portfolios aren’t as clean as investors might expect. Eight of
This is a message for those who want to avoid being ripped off by aspire to be investment bankers. One dirty secret (of many) in investment banking is valuations are an advertising tool. If you can’t manipulate valuations to get the number your boss wants you to get, you are in the wrong game. How else can
I’ve written a few times recently about the imbalances in the Australian economy and how messed up the Australian housing cycle is. It looks as if the Australian economy is hanging on to positive growth based on one factor. Without that factor, there is significant economic downside. The one economic question that matters: Can rising
September saw volatile, but ultimately strong equity markets push the investment returns for most superannuation funds higher. Our tactical investment funds performed well, and continue to post-investment returns above the returns of most Australian super funds over the last year. This comes despite their defensive stance. In our portfolios, we are positioned for adverse outcomes,
The World Economic Forum just posted its most recent Global Competitiveness index. I don’t agree with some of the underlying measurements, but I find the depth and transparency into their process excellent – if you are wondering how they got to a score then the answer is probably available. Very useful when looking at which
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced Monday an ACCC investigation into the banks not passing on interest rate cuts. I think the investigation will make a nice addition to ACCC’s bookshelf. They can file it next Rudd’s FuelWatch and Grocery Code of Conduct. The biggest question is whether the investigation is designed to be a distraction from
Part of my investment thesis on China is that the underlying structural issues have been laid bare by the trade war. Regardless of any face-saving deal, the problems will not go away. China’s reactions to three events in the past week appear increasingly unhinged and are likely to accelerate the process. Background China entered the
Bloomberg just published another stark reminder of the shifting landscape for energy generation – fossil fuels have a limited time as viable sources of energy. And I’m not talking about saving the planet or carbon taxes, simply economics. Coal, gas, oil, all have economics based on a scarcity curve: the more we use, the deeper
Most superannuation funds lost money in August on the back of the Australian stock market, falling around 2%. Our tactical funds all bucked the trend to increase in August on the back of our overweight bonds and heavily underweight Australian stocks holdings: In our portfolios, we are positioned for adverse outcomes, which means that we
With decent investment yields increasingly hard to find, it is important to avoid yield traps when looking for alternatives to increasingly expensive bonds. Looking beyond the headline yield is critical to avoid the pitfalls: sustainability of yield, adjusting for capital expenditure, incorporating buybacks and analysing cyclicality of earnings can all help. MSCI came out with a
WeWork put its Initial Public Offering on ice this week as the company realised it would not be valued at the $47 billion that WeWork wanted. Indications are that WeWork would struggle to raise money with a $15 billion valuation. The process WeWork took to get a $47 billion valuation is instructive for anyone with
Some welcome news for LNG producers as the spike in the oil price flows through to the gas price for many Australian producers due to contracts struck over a decade ago. However, it is a short term gain only, the LNG market is highly competitive and only going to get more competitive going forward –
First, I need to set the scene. I wrote recently about how messed up the Australian economic cycle is, noting that housing booms come in several different flavours. Australia had a credit-driven housing boom from 2012 to 2017, and those types of boom/bust cycles usually have the following elements: This is not the
Farmers of seasonal crops are at the whims of the weather. Despite the work and effort put into ploughing and seeding the field, the harvest is, in the end, dependent on the outcome of the weather which delivers feast or famine years. Value investing (the process of buying stocks that are priced the cheapest) has
July added another month of good performance to the share and bond market rallies that have driven markets higher throughout 2019. Our tactical portfolios continue to perform well vs other super funds: The issue we are facing in most of our portfolios is that we are positioned for negative outcomes, which means that we tend
Via Bill Evans of Westpac: The Reserve Bank Board meets on August 6 to consider whether to extend the sequence of rate cuts in June and July for another month. We think it is quite unlikely that the Board will decide to do a third consecutive cut at this meeting. Following the cut in July,
Putting a portfolio together sometimes feels like catching waves: you position the portfolio for a number of themes, wait for the right wave to lift the performance, and then readjust your positioning for the next wave. The 2019 year to June was one such year with all of our tactical portfolios picking the right swell
In todays LIVE webinar (12:30pm AEST, Thursday 18th July), hear from MB Fund’s Head of Investment, Damien Klassen and Tim Fuller as we have a look at: The latest stats from Australian SMSFs and where they are currently invested 2 major mistakes SMSF trustees make in asset allocation Some key ways to avoid making these
The rip higher in bond prices meant that our asset allocation portfolios outperformed the median super fund substantially in May – three of our four tactical funds beat the median fund by over 1% in the month: The bond movement though leaves us at an impasse. Bond markets are pricing disaster, equity markets are pricing
The Australian housing market is crazy. Plenty of pundits are calling for the bottom of the current housing downturn now that a “house price friendly” federal government has been elected but there is little recognition of how messed up the current cycle is and why that makes any sort of forecasting extremely unreliable. A Typical
Independent Investment Research recently released a report into the fund underlying the MB Growth fund and rated it Recommended. Some of the highlights: Recommendation IIR ascribes a “RECOMMENDED” rating to the Nucleus Tactical Growth model portfolio. While the track record is relatively short, IIR views the quantum and pattern of performance as being consistent with
We are closing in on two years of running client money for the MB fund and we have hit a number of funds under management targets at Praemium which unlocks lower administration costs. We are passing all of the cost savings on to investors. Some of the added benefits: Lower administration cost. Platform administration costs
My day job is a mix of quantitative and fundamental investment analysis. What that essentially means is that I spend my time looking for situations where the numbers don’t match the narrative – and I can’t help but notice that in the Australian Federal election result the narrative and the numbers are miles apart. Scott
Final look at election odds before the election: There have been some improvements for the Coalition overall. But not enough – if every single one of the 16 “Maybe” and “Toss-up” seat falls to the Coalition, they will only have 72 seats, with Labor on 75. The Coalition then would also need to convert at
Quick update to election odds from earlier this week after the final leadership debate: Both major parties improved odds in seats they were already favoured to win, but there was little major movement elsewhere. Things still look grim for the Coalition: If every single one of the 21 “Maybe” and “Toss-up” seat falls to the
I have a working theory that overall betting odds on elections are affected by what people wish would happen as much as what people think will happen. However, my theory is individual seat odds are less likely to be affected by the casual gambler and the betting odds are likely to be dominated by either
Global equities finished the month with the best quarterly performance since 3Q 2010. Of more interest to our investors though: we have had a change of heart and made some significant portfolio changes. Our assessment is that “we are not in Kansas anymore” and, while we will return to the real world before the end
There have been a number of commentators who have made the point that we have inflation in things we need (housing, utilities, fruit&veg, hospital services) and disinflation in things that we want (ice cream, TVs, cars, washing machines etc): But this isn’t the full story. Of the eleven main categories that the Australian Bureau of
From SuperRatings last week Lonsec has sustainable (AKA ethical or ESG) super funds charging high fees and underperforming: the median performance of ‘sustainable’ investment funds is lower than the median performance of the SuperRatings SR50 Balanced (60-76) Index, comprised of traditional balanced super funds. Furthermore, the ‘sustainable’ funds have higher median fees. The combination of the
