We sat down with Simon Doyle, Head of Fixed Income & Multi-Asset at Schroders, and asked him how he would allocate a million dollars today. In his responses to this tough question he made it clear that it’s not a good time to be building a big position in equities. Show More
With challenges for equity markets rising, even a defensively positioned balance fund, with just 45-50% equity exposure could struggle to deliver positive returns, warns Simon Doyle, Head of Fixed Income & Multi-Asset at Schroders, who emphasises that true flexibility in asset allocation will be critical ahead. Show More
Bonds are typically viewed as a defensive allocation in portfolios, however, in a world of rising interest rates, there are concerns about the impact this will have on fixed income returns. Stuart Dear, Deputy Head of Fixed Income at Schroders explains that the dominant driver of bond returns is the... Show More
Schroders Australia has completed its third broker insights survey, diving into how brokers are investing. Volatility has pushed the need to protect capital to the top of the priority list. Show More
While the global economy delivers on growth, the signs are there from the US regarding the pressure of inflation as the Fed raises rates, coupled with indications of wage pickup across the world. The RBA remains in a holding pattern on rates, and won’t move until the unemployment rate drops... Show More
Last year did not end with a whimper. In one corner, Frank Lowy and Rupert Murdoch chose to sell businesses they’d spent decades building, suggesting they believe selling prices are attractive. In the other, Aconex was the subject of a takeover bid from Oracle, AWE from Mineral Resources and Tox... Show More
This month will mark 30 years since I started working in financial markets. While I don’t remember exactly what happened on my first day, I do remember being inherently nervous starting work just a few weeks after the 1987 stock market crash. While I don’t intend to detail a laundry... Show More
In the space of just one month, a2 Milk added more than $1bn of additional market capitalisation, Wisetech Global not far short of $1bn, and Blackmores more than $500m. In the case of a2 Milk and Wisetech these amounts are substantially more than their reported revenues for the 2017 year,... Show More
Results from the inaugural stockbroker asset allocation survey were published in April this year. It’s the only information available on how this important part of the market is implementing portfolios. Three interesting points to arise were that generating income was listed as the most important objective, portfolios were heavily skewed... Show More
It was a rough year for markets as policy divergence in the West and slowdown in China drove USD strength, commodity price weakness and emerging economy instability. Sovereign bond yields ended little changed, but (especially longer tenor and riskier) credit weakened on default concerns in the energy sector and heavy... Show More
Despite recent market events, not that much has actually changed in China. It’s more a case of the “chickens coming home to roost” as policy mistakes and major policy contradictions come to a head. Overall we will use further falls in Asian equities as an opportunity to invest in good... Show More
In hindsight it has been nirvana for the unsophisticated investor. Those that piled into IPOs and technology stocks in the last few years were unduly rewarded with spectacular returns. Those more discerning who avoided the speculative fervour, have been figuratively buried owning miners and unfashionable industrial companies. We feel the... Show More
Asia continues to offer significant structural advantages in terms of growth potential over the longer term, but there are short-term headwinds that need to be factored into investment decision making. Asian companies are faced with three key global trends which will impact the landscape: demographics, deflation and disruption. Our preferred... Show More
We enter 2016 faced with familiar challenges to 2015. While returns have been anaemic, increased volatility has not been sufficient to reset prospective returns to levels that would make us interested in deploying cash and taking more risk. In short, our return expectations for the major asset classes are not... Show More
Much as we might prefer otherwise, the market price of every listed equity investment is an amorphous blend of human behaviour, macroeconomic and corporate fundamentals. Share prices do not conform to a precise mathematical theorem. Investment returns over any period will comprise an element which reflects investors’ assessment of the... Show More
2015 has been a difficult year for investors as markets have had to come to terms with a couple of important changes to the central banking status quo of recent years: 1) the Fed stopped easing and has turned its policy focus to when to raise rates, and 2) the... Show More
Over the past year the ASX200 Index is slightly down, but Resources and Energy are down 25% to 35%. Every other sector is up. Last month the bifurcation in returns stretched, again, to a record extent, as has been the case for several months through 2015. Many sectors are now... Show More
A key differentiator this year when compared to 2013 and 2014 has been the growing bifurcation between the winning and losing assets. While 2013 could be broadly categorised as a year where most assets did well, 2014 was somewhat more discriminating but on balance a good year for most investors.... Show More
Global equities cruised past their pre-financial crisis highs earlier this year, seemingly oblivious to mounting valuation hurdles and concerns about the narrowness of market performance. The last five or so years have hugely favoured Momentum, Growth and Macro-orientated investors, while Value approaches have struggled against this backdrop. Volatility has returned... Show More
We remain cautious on the outlook for the market given the macroeconomic backdrop is unconvincing. Putting that aside we are finding decent opportunities in the small cap space from a valuation perspective amongst companies that are unpopular due more to perception than reality. Most of these companies have strong balance... Show More