53: Sunsuper's Andrew Fisher – Asset Allocation, Pandemic and Retirement Products

Andrew Fisher is Head of Asset Allocation at Australian pension fund Sunsuper. We discussed the impact of how the markets have changed since the 2008 financial crisis on asset allocation and whether these changes are structural or part of a very long cycle. We also discuss the fund's partnership program, whether value is truly a risk premium and retirement products. Enjoy! Overview of podcast with Andrew Fisher 1:00 On ultra marathon running 2:00 Getting started in investing 4:50 Everybody is good at the pure maths side of things, where people differ is how they apply that knowledge 6:00 Markets are more driven by emotion today 7:30 Changing how we think about foreign currency 9:15 Talking distressed opportunities 10:00 NZ Super's strategic tilting program 12:00 I'm not convinced that strategic asset allocation has stopped working 13:00 As the markets were falling, we definitely increased equity allocations 14:30 You shouldn't base your defensive assets on the most recent crisis 18:00 Value versus growth: structural or cyclical 18:45 I have a healthy scepticism about whether there is a risk premium in Value 19:40 There is definitely a cyclical dislocation in certain sectors of the market 20:30 Technology is overvalued against almost every other sector. 24:00 On machine learning 25:30 Partnership program and strategic review 28:20 We are going to wait and see; we don't really want to sell anything, but we also don't really want to buy anything 30:30 Retirement, I'm not sure that anyone has been able to deliver anything better than the allocated pension