ALO04: Insights from the Queens Bank CIO ft. Alan Higgins
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2022
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, Alan Dunne is joined by Alan Higgins, the CIO and Chief Market Strategise of Coutts UK, also known as the Queens Bank, to discuss sound ways to invest in today’s environment, Alan’s interest at an early age in how to earn a risk premium, being a 60/40 investor and how the strategy will evolve, asset management vs. wealth management, distressed debt investing, behavioural biases, inflation, equity and interest rates, as well as the Yale Approach finishing off with some book recommendations on asset allocation and investing.
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In this episode, we discuss:
- What the 60/40 portfolio will look like in the next decade
- The surprise of markets ability to trend
- The value of Risk Mitigation, but how it’s not enough
- Insights to the inflationary period in the UK under Nigel Lawson
- Why this time feels different
- Lessons from the 1987 Crash
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Episode TimeStamps:
00:00 - Intro
03:05 - Alan’s background and current role
04:44 - Risk premium and fixed income
24:33 - Setbacks and drawdowns
26:45 - Inflation
35:06 - Interest rates, bonds and dividends
43:22 - Asset allocation and portfolio construction
46:18 - Alan’s role at Eighteen48 Partners
48:33 - David Swensen and the Yale Approach
50:15 - Risks of private equity strategies
52:16 - Good vs. bad investment processes
55:00 - Managing investment teams
56:52 - Book recommendations
01:01:06 - Summary by Niels
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Because in times of setbacks in markets, that's a time when clients in our world are really looking at their portfolio closely. |
| 0:14.4 | So if you can mitigate the downside in these extreme events, it's really, really helpful. |
| 0:20.0 | And of course, government bonds in particular, to a certain extent, investment grade, |
| 0:24.6 | really, really did deliver on that, including March 2020, of course. |
| 0:29.8 | So that is useful, but it can't be the only solution. |
| 0:35.0 | Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. Imagine learning from their experiences, |
| 0:40.9 | their successes, and their failures. Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders Unplugged, |
| 0:47.5 | the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund managers in the world so you can take your |
| 0:52.1 | manager due diligence or investment career to the |
| 0:54.8 | next level. Before we begin today's conversation, remember to keep two things in mind. All the |
| 1:00.3 | discussion we'll have about investment performance is about the past, and past performance |
| 1:04.6 | does not guarantee or even infer anything about future performance. Also understand that there's a |
| 1:09.9 | significant risk of financial loss |
| 1:11.6 | with all investment strategies, and you need to request and understand the specific risks from |
| 1:16.5 | the investment manager about their product before you make investment decisions. |
| 1:20.7 | Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Nealz Kostrup Larson. |
| 1:37.9 | For me, the best part of my podcasting journey has been the opportunity to speak to a huge range of extraordinary investors from all around the world. |
| 1:43.7 | In this series, I have invited one of them, namely Alan Dunn, to host a series of in-depth conversations on the topic |
| 1:45.0 | of what it takes to be a world-class allocator. |
| 1:48.0 | In today's world, portfolio construction is fast moving to the top of the agenda of many investors |
| 1:54.0 | as they try to analyze and understand the riskiness of their portfolios. |
| 1:58.0 | And with ever increasing uncertainty around the globe, |
... |
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