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(pictured: Scott Berg) In a “weird and volatile world” equity investors still need to focus on traditional signals, T. Rowe Price global portfolio manager Scott Berg said last week on a brief tour of New Zealand with local fund partner Harbour Asset Management. Australian-born Berg said share investors should “thoughtfully look through” the current meta-noise to…

(pictured: Rod Sims) Analysis by Greg Bright It’s not just the Link Group’s board and management that are displeased at the ACCC interim view on the proposed Pillar purchase, announced last Thursday. The NSW Government, too, along with Pillar staff, may well be the biggest losers. The final date for bids has been pushed back a…

(pictured: Lukas Daalder) Robeco’s five-year expected returns report – a well-regarded annual outlook for markets and investment opportunities – which this year came to 120 pages – is not a light read. The latest report, published last week, with a world full of uncertainty, was particularly dark. Lukas Daalder, The Netherlands-based Robeco executive director and CIO…

(pictured: Andrew Formica and Dick Weil)  While on an extensive worldwide roadshow meeting clients, shareholders and staff, Andrew Formica and Dick Weil, the proposed co-chief executives of a merged Janus Henderson Global Investors addressed media in Sydney last week. They said the joint-CEO role was a “special solution for a special situation”. Dick Weil, Janus’s…

(pictured: Jeremy Bond) In the longest bear run in global mining stocks since FTSE’s index was launched in 1985, a focus on Australian-listed small resources, including theme-driven lithium (batteries) and potash (fertilizer) stocks, gave one local manager an 87 per cent absolute return in the past 12 months. Terra Capital, the Sydney small and micro-cap manager…

(pictured: Alan Kohler) As Alan Kohler points out, taking on a little more risk in retirement is very different from taking it on when you’re younger. So what’s his advice to retirees? Go 100 per cent fixed interest or similar, he says, which also means you have to save a lot more money before you retire….

(pictured: Jan Kolbusz) Super funds have started to embrace, after a long period of either consideration or procrastination, the use of sophisticated member engagement and other personal advice tools, although they are generally shunning the popular term of ‘robo advice’. Jan Kolbusz, an early entrant with a history in investment admin, offers his take on accelerating…

(pictured: Hiliary Clinton and Donald Trump) Historically, US elections have not mattered much to either the US – and therefore global – economy or to markets. But this one is so extremely polarising and Donald Trump so unpredictable, that many investors are looking to hedge their bets on the off-chance of a Republican victory. Here are…

(pictured: Bruce Moss) by David Chaplin Flesh-based financial advisers remain confident of fending off robo-competitors despite the gathering pace of the digital revolution, a new global survey has found. According to the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) 2016 member survey, most financial advisers saw robots as potential servants rather than the new overlords. “In response to…

(pictured: Michael Dwyer) by Greg Bright  The purchase of StatePlus, the financial planning and wealth management business formerly owned by NSW State Super (STC), is transforming the $60 billion First State Super into a unique fund under a project known internally as ‘BOB’ – best of both. There are no less than 14 working groups on…