Five Themes Of Geography Tests

Gear Shift

The three benchmark Adviser Fund Index (AFI) indices offer an insight into the way in which panellists view markets and how this in reflected in their investment decisions. Looked at over the longer term, however, the underlying themes in Aggressive, Balanced and Cautious portfolios an help reveal deeper structural trends underpinning portfolio construction.

While the investment objectives of each portfolio means that fund selection and asset allocation are divergent, it is interesting to identify overriding shifts that run across the risk spectrum.

REGIONAL ALLOCATION Perhaps the most apparent trend over the past few years in the portfolios has been the gradual unwinding of the domestic bias in AFI portfolios, which has been a long-running trend.

In May 2007 British equities accounted for 40% of the Aggressive, 42% of the Balanced and 35% of the Cautious portfolios. After the May rebalancing, or portfolio adjustment, this year they fell to 27%, 27% and 24% respectively. This suggests that panellists are moving to abandon the traditional overweight in the sector.

While there are several reasons for the geographical shift at any given rebalancing the fact that the weighting towards British equities has consistently declined over the past seven rebalancings shows a more fundamental change in panellists’ behaviour.

The traditional argument for sticking with an asset class simply because it is familiar has been gradually eroded. This owes as much to the [Global Emerging Markets].”

It would be premature, however, to suggest that the retreat from British equities represents a paradigm shift from developed to developing markets. If anything, the events of recent years have highlighted the appeal of geographical and sector diversification that has directly benefited most of the regions that were previously underweighted.

In part this helps explain why panellists also chose to raise their weighting towards North America. In May 2007 North America accounted for 10% of the Aggressive, 7% of the Balanced and only 3% of the Cautious portfolios. After the last rebalancing these figures had been increased to 16%, 14% and 10% respectively.

For all of the reasons spelled out above it is difficult to dispute that emerging markets are progressively laying a key role in portfolio construction while the appeal of a home market bias seems to be waning. Despite this, the message from panellists appears to be a more nuanced one as the allocation shifts reveal a gradual approach, selecting strategic bond funds where managers take the decision over risk and duration out of your hands.

August 4th « Sea Horses

Sixth Grade

Track 1

If your child is tardy to homeroom, (after 7:40 a.m.) then your child must receive a pass from the front office and turn it in to his/her homeroom teacher to be counted present.  A phone message will be sent to parents stating the child was counted absent for the day if a tardy list was not picked up in the office.

Interim Reports will be handed out on Wednesday, August 17 and each Monday thereafter, each student will be given a weekly “ Dolphin Ticket ” that will be stapled in the front of his/her agenda.  On the Dolphin Ticket there are pictures of twenty dolphins.  Students who “keep” fifteen of the twenty dolphins by third period the following Friday will earn a special reward in courtyard.  The reward for the first week will be ice cream sundaes.  Students lose dolphins when they do not bring their materials (e.g., binders, pencils, agendas, homework) to class; leave these materials in another location, such as a classroom, gym or cafeteria; or need to leave the classroom for situations other than an emergency.  Although students have scheduled “locker times” and have time between classes and during lunch to use the restrooms, we are finding they are using this time to socialize and want to leave the classroom during instruction.   We hope that these weekly incentives will encourage them to follow the team’s procedures.