Analysis

Too much of what managers call alpha is just a roll of the dice. To find the real stuff you have to look in private markets, according to Michael Block, while trend following strategies will get you something that looks just like it.

Uncertainty, dispersion and volatility are “magical words” for hedge funds, and the $160 billion Aware Super has reframed its thinking around the liquid alternatives space in a more complex macro environment.

The $1.7 trillion global investment manager PGIM has brought together its alternatives units in a sign of their growing importance to its biggest clients.

Calls to liquidate the Future Fund and use the proceeds to pay down government debt have grown louder in recent weeks but doing so won’t come without a cost according to analysis from WTW.

The latest iteration of the Your Future Your Super test has dispatched a large swathe of trustee-directed products even as APRA acknowledges that many are selected for reasons beyond performance.

Changing dynamics in the Australian asset management industry gave the Future Fund access to a manager it might ordinarily have been forced to walk away from, and it expects to find plentiful (and sustainable) alpha in small caps.

Valuations are never going to be “perfect”, but that doesn’t mean super funds shouldn’t be working harder to make them more accurate – and more intelligible to the people who really matter.

The Future Fund might make a bigger contribution to the budget if it was liquidated, according to the Centre for Independent Studies, which argues that its returns haven’t been that impressive even as its benchmark gets harder to beat.

Build-to-rent has become the model of choice for institutional investors looking to pad their returns and alleviate Australia’s housing crisis, but a different approach might make everybody better off.

Having “skin in the game” is usually a boon for performance and client alignment. But when managers put their money where their mouth is, they don’t invest it sustainably according to a Swiss report.

Ongoing tightness in the US labour market, together with stickier than anticipated inflation, could counteract any softening of monetary policy by the Fed and lead to a bumpy economic path according to Ninety One’s Iain Cunningham.

With assets representing ten per cent of global GDP tipped to be tokenized by 2030, those deploying capital are keen to identify and harness the inherent opportunities. And Australia is leading the way.