Analysis

The Coalition wants to take the upper hand in the often emotional superannuation wars. Nation building and the new objective of super give it the perfect opportunity.

ASFA’s 2023 conference began with a pessimistic but realistic view of what investors can expect. They either need to build more resilient portfolios, trade more or “nail their colours to the mast and sail”.

If the Albanese Government gets its way, superannuation will finally have a true objective. But actually legislating it will mean navigating a semantic minefield.

It’s too soon to call the death of traditional portfolio construction even as an apparent new investment paradigm makes it more challenged. Investors should instead stay ‘humble students of the market’.

Global pension assets fell sharply in 2022, but the “global polycrisis” that caused the chaos is unlikely to be a one-off, according to the Thinking Ahead Institute.

Most asset allocators and institutional investors have a chief risk officer to manage investment volatility – but liquidity poses the greater risk, according to PGIM, and few institutions have a role for managing it.

The big headwind to the emerging markets is fading. But buying big stories about growth and shuffling money from one hot sector to another is no way to play them.

Making predictions is hard, especially about the future. That hasn’t stopped TCorp from calling an RBA pivot, falling US inflation and corporate earnings, and further deterioration in US-China relations.

Institutional investors love private equity but it’s bringing them down. They’re sweating everything from valuations to overcrowding and “private equity bubble risk”.

Much of the work Willis Towers Watson does for Australia’s largest allocators is now around investment governance. But the tyranny of distance means the local scene can be a bit of an “echo chamber”.

The Future Fund pulled some of its new portfolio levers to mitigate the financial damage seen through 2022, but it doesn’t expect markets to get much better anytime soon.

While there’s widespread suspicion that “financial skullduggery” is afoot in private market valuations, the tricky part is the lack of comparisons in their fastest growing segment.