Investment News

Defying recent bullish sentiment investment specialists across the US-listed multi-affiliate firm, Franklin Templeton, expect markets to end 2024 much as they started. According to the inaugural Franklin Templeton Institute survey of 300 senior investment staff, the S&P 500 benchmark is likely to close the year with an index reading of 4,744. The S&P 500 breached… [Read More…]

You can only see it if you look in the right places, but carbon mispricing could have massive implications for how risky an investment really is. Meanwhile, large language models are reading between the lines of earnings transcripts. Carbon emissions represent an underappreciated risk to company stability and earnings, but have largely gone unexamined by… [Read More…]

Trustees Executors (TE) has offloaded its private wealth arm to Perpetual Guardian. In a release this afternoon, TE chair, Rob Russell, confirmed the sale ‘for an undisclosed sum’ while the Wellington-based company retains its core corporate trustee and funds administration divisions. “I am confident that our private clients will continue to receive the same specialised… [Read More…]

Former ANZ funds chief investment officer, Paul Huxford, has returned to the Macquarie fold after a more than 16-year hiatus from the Australian financial mega-firm. Huxford, who served almost six years with ANZ ending last December, is now CIO for the Macquarie wealth management arm in a newly created position. His investment responsibilities include the… [Read More…]

The freshly cut-down ASX-listed financial services firm, AMP, has set a modest “maintain” target for its NZ wealth operation amid mixed fortunes in Australia. Announcing the group’s 2023 annual results last week, AMP chief, Alexis George, said the NZ strategy was to “maintain current performance and continue to diversify revenue”. Year-on-year the NZ wealth arm… [Read More…]

Nikko diversified funds have been scratched from the AMP KiwiSaver and NZ Retirement Trust (NZRT) platforms, reducing the external manager count to four. According to updated disclosure documents, the AMP-hosted Nikko conservative, balanced and growth funds closed to new money last week. The Nikko funds have accrued about $300 million across the AMP products, split… [Read More…]

Milford piled on almost $1 billion in the December quarter as ripping markets and strong flows saw the manager cement fifth spot in the Morningstar KiwiSaver universe. The Auckland-based boutique grew KiwiSaver assets under management to almost $7.85 billion by the end of last year, up from $6.9 billion as at September 30 while its… [Read More…]

Magellan is down but not out after a gruelling two-year bout of fund outflows and staff volatility, according to executive chair, Andrew Formica. Formica told investors in the group’s half-year results announcement last week that the fallen star Australian fund manager is poised for growth after resolving “legacy” issues, staunching outflows and lining up a… [Read More…]

NZ financial advisers rate fees and costs as the most important factor in choosing investment funds, according to a new Kernel Wealth survey. The Kernel poll found 75 per cent of advisers consider ‘fees and expenses’ as most critical in selecting investments – just ahead of diversification (73 per cent) and performance history (70 per… [Read More…]

The peak global asset management climate change lobby group suffered a quadruple-blow last week as four of the world’s largest fund firms either quit or downgraded membership. Both the US$3.1 trillion JP Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM), State Street Global Advisors (US$4.1 trillion) and bond giant PIMCO (US$1.9 trillion) left the Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) organisation… [Read More…]