Adviser Spotlight

After a long period of growth, both performance and assets have tailed off for real listed assets since 2016, raising the question of whether they’ve seen their best days for the time being. Recent analysis from our Manager Research Team reveals some significant shifts worth noting for clients with portfolio exposure to this sector.

Sustainable investing can offer tremendous opportunity for financial advisers and asset managers, alike. Interest in the field is significantly growing among investors – particularly investors who are young, female, or more affluent.

While well-intentioned, the industry’s current approach to matching investors to appropriate investments is incomplete. To help, Stephen Wendel, Head of Behavioural Science at Morningstar, outlines how you can better manage your risk-averse clients during times of market volatility.

Australia’s Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry serves as a stark reminder of the importance of stewardship in evaluating a managed investment product. See how we rate the “big 5’s” stewardship of their funds management business’.

Investors want more information and further education to help them effectively use ETFs. It’s worthwhile revisiting the 10 rules of thumb for ETF transactions that we published in 2015. Every rule remains just as relevant in 2019, and we wouldn’t be surprised if these rules remain relevant for years to come.

There’s a huge need for great investing advice, and great advice begins with us. Not just with Morningstar, but with the institutions building investment products; with the plan sponsors trying to help a workforce unlock the power of their retirement plans; and with the advisers who face the push and pull between serving clients and building successful practices.

Hear from Jamie Wickham, Morningstar Australasia Managing Director, as he discusses the ever-growing importance of Morningstar’s values and what we stand for.

Relatively flexible, or unconstrained, fixed-interest strategies have touted their capacity to handle higher-bond yields better than more-traditional options. Our prior research has found some validity to these claims, albeit in a limited sample size. There were more opportunities to test this in 2018. We consequently investigate whether this has remained true and discuss the implications for using these vehicles in portfolios.

The 2019 Australian Morningstar Awards took place last Friday evening at the Establishment in Sydney. Congratulations to Vanguard for taking out the overall Fund Manager of the Year, and all our category winners. All winners in the Morningstar Awards have demonstrated themselves to be good stewards of investors’ capital.

Benchmarking is a concept used to help define whether an investment proposition is delivering value. It is well intentioned; however, we should acknowledge the shortcomings. In this article we discuss the importance of benchmarking to your financial goals.

It’s important to understand where your edge comes from. We believe ours is analytical, organisational, and behavioural – and this explains why we’re compelled to be defensive in the current market. And, by sticking to our strengths, we believe we will help end investors and those we serve in the long run.

Despite the pressures in the industry right now, we continue to believe in the future of financial planning. This is not just wishful thinking. For five years now, our most senior researchers in the US and Canada have been able to quantify the benefits of good advice – and they are significant.

On 24 May, the curtain was raised at the 2018 Morningstar Investment Conference with an enthralling keynote presentation from two of our industry’s deepest thinkers. Dr Michael Hasenstab and Kerr Neilson captivated the full house of advisers by outlining their predictions and positions for the years ahead.

Jody Jonsson, portfolio manager at Capital Group and Jacob Mitchell, Chief Investment Officer and portfolio manager at Antipodes Partners shared their thoughts on global opportunities in the “Scouring the World for Opportunities in an Aging Bull Market” session at the recent 2018 Morningstar Investment Conference.

Hear from Brad Boyd, Senior Vice President at Payden & Rygel and Brett Lewthwaite, Co-Head of Fixed Income at Macquarie Investment Management, who shared their thoughts at our recent Morningstar Investment Conference on the impending economic and financial risks impacting the global fixed income market.

Kate Howitt, portfolio manager at Fidelity International, and Vince Pezzullo, Perpetual’s deputy head of equities, discuss the expensiveness of the Australian market, potential value traps, and the difficulty in defensively positioning portfolios – outlining the case for active management in the current market environment.

ETFs are undoubtedly one of the fastest-growing sectors in financial markets today. To learn what’s really behind this trend, Morningstar’s Alex Prineas chaired a riveting Investment Conference panel with Jonathan Howie, head of ETF product and strategy for iShares, and Alex Vynokur, CEO of BetaShares, one of Australia’s fastest-growing ETF managers.

According to Morningstar research, portfolios that assumed no further adjustments tended to beat the returns of the actual portfolios, which reflected the fund managers’ trading activity. Read as Tim Murphy explores the many reasons to take a  ‘hands-off’ approach.

Learn how the Morningstar star ratings provide investors and advisers alike with a great starting point in their fund selection process.

Clint Abraham, Portfolio Specialist at Morningstar Investment Management, takes a look at the key lessons learned in the decade since the Global Financial Crisis.

Financial advisers often find themselves playing the role of counselor, and they are confronted with clients whose emotional health is wreaking havoc on their finances. It’s time to redefine the term “financial health” so it includes both a person’s economic stability and emotional wellbeing around his finances.