Investor Strategy News

Institutional and other wholesale portfolios may be carrying far greater US dollar concentration than headline asset allocation figures suggest, cautions the Franklin Templeton Institute. Most institutions carry this risk unintentionally, yet it is growing increasingly consequential as global monetary and fiscal policy paths diverge. The institute analysed a 2025 Preqin survey of 1,633 institutional investors, including public pensions, endowments, foundations and insurers.

The Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) has moved from academic concept to operational reality, overseas and here, with CalPERS, the first US public pension fund to adopt TPA when its board voted in November 2025, formally moving to the new model this July.

Each week we aim to feature a chart that highlights changes and trends in today’s markets and that are of benefit to institutional investors, endowments, family offices, asset consultants and ultra-high net worth investors (HNIs). This chart from the Amundi Investment Institute illustrates a clear market rotation away from megacap technology stocks into broader, small-cap asset classes between March 2026 and June 2026.

Risk statements were once governance boilerplate. That is rightly changing. Ask most investment strategists and committees what they oversee and the honest answer, until recently, was an asset allocation. Boards approved a committee’s strategic mix, delegated implementation and monitored performance against benchmarks. Risk appetite and measurement sat somewhere in the background, articulated in qualitative language and revisited when the auditors asked. That model has evolved.

Geopolitics has moved from the periphery of the investment process to its centre. Those investors that adapt their strategies best are likely to be the winners of the next decade. Wars, sanctions and political ruptures were largely emerging market problems, or temporary shocks to investment strategies. That assumption no longer holds, according to Amundi.

Investor Strategy News publishes dozens of stories each month for our institutional, family office, asset consultant, ultra and high net worth investor audience. Many become must-reads across the sector. With the close of the first half of 2026, we’ve pulled the numbers to see what actually landed with you. Ranked by total views, here are ISN’s seven most read stories of H1 2026.

Local super funds are measuring superannuation member engagement more intensively than ever, though whether it lifts outcomes is another question. Dashboards now carry app logins and funds can check email open rates, click-through rates, call volumes, net promoter scores and satisfaction indices. Most data are refreshed in close to real time. The harder question, and the one the regulators keep returning to, is whether any of it shows up in the retirement outcomes those members eventually reach.

Custody is “largely unseen by the public”, according to a new discussion paper by New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA), except when something goes wrong. Some things have gone wrong. As namechecked in the FMA paper, the 21st century has featured several infamous custody-related debacles in NZ, including Ross Asset Management, Barry Kloogh and Halifax.

AMP Super has delivered returns above 11 per cent for the majority of its MySuper members in the year to 30 June 2026, the third consecutive year the fund has cleared that mark. Members in the 1970s and 1990s Lifestage cohorts returned 11.3 per cent, while the 1980s cohort returned 11.2 per cent. Around 80 per cent of MySuper members, all born in 1970 or later, sit across these three options, with the 1970s cohort the largest by assets under management.

As the new financial year begins, David Robertson, chief economist at Bendigo Bank, expects the Reserve Bank of Australia to hold rates steady at its August meeting, buying homeowners a brief reprieve. However, he argues the tightening cycle is not finished and dismisses talk of rate cuts in 2027 as premature while core inflation stays stubbornly above target.