For daily analysis of the investment markets click here . Please click here for an introduction to MBMG International Investment Services. Award-winning portfolio manager Sam Liddle has a thought-provoking piece about how the places to look for the best investment opportunities may not always be the most obvious. September was a better month in many markets and another solid month for the Optimal Core Diversified funds. Capital protection is very much part of the mission statement for the Miton Optimal team and with a greatly reduced exposure to dollar assets and a cautious eye on equity exposure, they are wary of repositioning themselves into the market before valuations look considerably more attractive. Capital protection is very much part of the mission statement for the Miton Optimal team and with a greatly reduced exposure to Dollar assets and a cautious eye on equity exposure, they are wary of repositioning themselves into the market before valuations look considerably more attractive. An active approach to asset allocation is the key to MitonOptimal's award-winning success. Click here for a detailed presentation . (Ffile size is 1.6 Mb - but well worth any wait!)
How good are managed investment funds? According to research analyst Mark Dampier, most are pretty poor - an exception being those managed by MBMG's portfolio advisor, Miton Optimal.
We're often asked to justify our view that economic fundamentals turned bad (assisted in no small part by Alan Greenspan) around the turn of the millennium despite the fact that there has been a strong equity market boom for the last 3 years. Click here to read our attempts to explain about cyclical and secular bull and bear markets.
For some time now MBMG have been banging the drum about the new commodity bull market. This is highlighted in the following figures -
Year to date 12 Months 5 Years   Rogers International Commodity Index +30.0% +17.1% +18.0%   Goldman Sachs Commodity Index TR +15.3% +19.0% +14.2%   DJ- AIG Commodity Index TR +18.6% +21.0% +13.3%   Reuters Jeffries Commodity Index +22.8% +18.7% +10.7%

For more background on commodities read the latest MBMG Article - Golden Opportunity

Commodities have currently been singled out as the asset class of choice, but to be fair all asset classes have gone up in the last three years, thanks to copious amounts of liquidity that have been thrown at the market. Going forward we do not believe this will continue and investors should be more circumspect in the assets that they hold. Please click to read the latest portfolio report.

We were recently commissioned by a client to review the way that global banking giant, UBS, has now belatedly climbed aboard the 5 asset class portfolio bandwagon. As many of our readers will know we have been almost evangelical about preaching the message that there are 5 asset classes and that a diversified balanced portfolio considers exposure to all of these and looks to allocate to them according to their relative merits and therefore we welcome UBS on board . We only wish that Wall Street devoted more of its energies and resources to delivering what investors actually need. When our core portfolio managers at Miton Optimal swept the board at last year's Multi Manager Awards (as opposed to the Lipper, Investment Week, S&P and other awards won last year and again this year), the judging panel called them ".. A team that never loses sight of the fact that the money it runs belongs to its clients, and they want to see it rise in value” At the risk of what Basil Fawlty once called graduating "in the bleeding obvious" we'll continue to adopt that as our core philosophy. Sadly New York Attorney-General Spitzer's activities in prosecuting many of the big names on Wall Street seems to have had little or no effect on underlying Wall Street attitudes which remain far too redolent of the Wall Street of Bonfire of The Vanities and Liar's Poker.

Top quartile fund recommendations, top percentile portfolios and the latest offers and new issues. In conjunction with informed tax planning, good quality investment advice can insure that you maximize your financial potential. A diverse range of investment services are available, from the recommendation of individual stocks or funds to complete portfolio management. For the latter we have been the best performing advisors in Asia and among the very best in the world throughout the last 6 years. his is, in no small part, attributable to the considerable success of our portfolio advisor, Scott Campbell. Scott has now been the leading manager of actively or dynamically managed global portfolios for the last 6 years, is rated as a 5 Star manager by S&P, and is heralded by Lipper Leader as being among the exceptional managers who deliver consistent performance and offer high levels of security and consistency. Under Scott's close guidance, MBMG is able to select from funds offering the highest levels of tax efficiency and optimum risk/reward ratios for the requirements of each client. Administered from virtually every jurisdiction including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, Hong Kong, the BVI and the Isle of Man - this wide range of funds offers genuine global opportunities and provides access to all the trading and stock markets around the world, ranging from secure major government bonds and gilt-edged stocks through to speculation in high risk derivatives and investment in emerging markets.

One of the big issues for international investors is making the right currency choices. The complexities of this are laid bare in our article ' Exploding The Currency Myth '.

MBMG conducts in-depth analysis in order to identify the best opportunities within any given sector. MBMG's private client portfolios have all produced gains even during the difficult years since the dawn of the new millennium, a period during which well over 90% of investments have returned losses. This makes us pre-eminent as investment advisors not only in Asia, but globally. Find out more about our preferred funds or our specialist portfolios:

Recommended Funds In Focus

Performance statistics

Whether you have been living abroad for some time or are contemplating the start of a new life elsewhere, tax efficiency is a big, and often complex, issue. You want to pay as little tax as possible on your savings and investments and you may also have concerns about inheritance tax liability on your estate. Enter to a trumpet fanfare the offshore investment bond (also known as an offshore insurance bond). For how expatriates of just about every nationality can benefit, please click here .

Our core philosophy is efficient investment – at every risk point on the spectrum the investment should offer the maximum reward for that level of risk. All too often, investors fly blind when choosing a hedge fund . Even for the so called experts who pore over mountains of data it's never as easy to scrutinize hedge funds the way we would a less complex money management firm.