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It's important to demand the highest standards from firms that are entrusted with managing other people’s savings. Key attributes to look for are strong stewardship and the ability to deliver long-term returns.
Investors face a difficult decision when choosing their fund managers. Here's a guide for how they can find active managers with sustainable long-term advantages who can help make a difference to their portfolios.
Investors can invest in the funds of our leading fund managers, or they can invest in the business itself. The success of the fund manager is 'twinned' to the performance of the fund, but what type of twins are they?
We often assign quality in investment choice by historical returns, backed up when we see fund flows directed towards such historically well-performing funds. This is a mistake made by investors and regulators.
Investing in a traditional index can be compared with taking the main road to a destination, but if you know the backroads and traffic conditions, you coud reach your goal quicker.
Notwithstanding the wide variety of fund managers and fund structures vying for the investor dollar, some questions need to be asked of all of them. They help us determine the quality of the fund and the manager.
Financial advisers spend an inordinate amount of time selecting fund managers for their clients, but is the impact/effort matrix worth it. It's hard enough for good managers to even beat the index.
Family offices and institutional asset allocators select their fund managers based on different factors, and it influences the quality and outcomes of their decisions.
The funds management industry is undergoing consolidation and evolving rapidly, under pressure to provide better service and high returns while cutting costs. Chris Cuffe discusses the present and the future.
Paying a high performance fee must be a good problem to have, as it must mean the fund manager has delivered outstanding performance, right? It's not always the case, and it pays to know how the fee is calculated.
Last week’s article on index versus active portfolio management drew many comments, including on the website, by email and by forwarding other articles to us. Here is a sample.
If you think you can identify the few managers who can outperform the index over time, either by research or based on advice, go for it. But the odds are stacked against you.
It’s with heavy hearts that we announce Firstlinks’ co-founder and former Managing Editor, Graham Hand, has died aged 66. Graham was a legendary figure in the finance industry and here are three tributes to him.
There are well over 800,000 family trusts in Australia, controlling more than $3 trillion of assets. Here's a guide on whether a family trust may have a place in your individual investment strategy.
Investing guru Howard Marks says he had two epiphanies while visiting Australia recently: the two major asset classes aren’t what you think they are, and one key decision matters above all else when building portfolios.
Berkshire Hathaway’s third quarter earnings update reveals Buffett is selling stocks and building record cash reserves. Here’s a look at his track record in calling market tops and whether you should follow his lead and dial down risk.
How have so many wealthy families through history managed to squander their fortunes? This looks at the lessons from these families and offers several solutions to making and keeping money over the long-term.
A recent ruling from The Australian Financial Complaints Authority may herald a new era for financial scams. For the first time, a bank is being forced to reimburse a customer for the amount they were scammed.