Did you miss Day One of the Morningstar Investment Conference? We've got you covered!

1. Catching up with GQG Partners’ Rajiv Jain: A new playbook for investing

It has been a highly challenging environment for global equity managers over the past two years, with few managing to successfully navigate through market volatility, style rotations and broad-based valuation de-rating. One manager with a strong record of staying ahead of the curve is GQG, led by CIO Rajiv Jain. Jain spoke about a new way of investment thinking following a decade-long negative-interest rate environment. This has impacted “how we value securities and take a long-term view”.?Previously, there was a lot of “frothiness” with tech companies, a sector Jain shied away from because they were only expected to make profit over a five-year timeframe. He likes the mega cap names – think Alphabet – because of their current [attractive] valuations and importantly, are making “real cash flow” in the now.?

2. Cutting through the recessionary fears noise: Are some bargains overlooked??

The risk of recession sees defensives names near full valuations but are some stocks unfairly discounted? Morningstar Mathew Hodge, Johannes Faul and Adrian Atkins, discussed the outlook. While the market is “screaming undervalued,” there is still some opportunity. Sectors such as energy and healthcare are where there is a good value. The panel did a deep dive into the stocks they liked including those companies on Morningstar’s Best Ideas List.?

3. How platforms are meeting the evolving investor

Platforms are continuing to evolve and now play a crucial role in supporting the delivery of advice. The top platform providers including HUB24’s Jason Entwistle and Colonial First State’s Peter Labrie spoke about how they are meeting the needs of the evolving investor. ESG remains a focus but requires some nuance. Rather than ESG meaning all things to everyone, both Jason and Peter spoke about the need to engage clients and discuss what is important to them – is it gender equality, deforestation? – and then how does that stack up against their current portfolio construction.?

4. In Conversation with Vanguard's Chiefs, Gregory Davis and Roger Aliaga-Diaz

Both Greg and Roger, sat down with our own Global Chief Ratings Officer, Jeffrey Ptak, in Malvern Pennsylvania to explore current macroeconomic thinking on inflation and recession fears

Globally, inflation should trend back to the 2% mark according to Greg adding that central banks including the Federal Reserve and Reserve Bank of Australia have done a “tremendous job in stabilising the market” through consecutive rate increases. The session also gave a peek into Vanguard’s thinking on asset class return over the next 12 months: 5% return for Australian equities, 4% for bonds (hedged) and 7% for global equities. Despite these positive returns, the Vanguard chiefs believe there is 90% and 50% chance of recession for the US and Australia (respectively) over the same period.?

5 There's still time to register and get your CPD accreditation

There is still time to register for our in-person event. A reminder that MICAU is CPD accredited. Just?click here?sign up to the event and you will also receive CPD accreditation at the end of the conference. Or if you would like to speak to one of our specialists,?click here?and one of the team will be in touch.