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Today's emphases on fiduciary responsibility, risk management and increased transparency require better due diligence when selecting managers. Especially in today's turbulent markets, advisors who spend more time and resources to do due diligence well can find themselves at a distinct competitive advantage. While these tips won't necessarily help you identify the next active management superstar, they can bolster your manager selection and due diligence program.

Most institutional investors plan to increase their allocations to alternative investments over the next three years, increasing their influence over the sector, while the funds' managers and administrators view regulation and governance as the industry's most important challenges during the same period. These are just two of the key findings of a worldwide survey by KPMG International.

Investors should focus on identifying valuation opportunities. We currently see value opportunities in U.S. quality growth stocks, which have the added benefit of providing long-term equity performance combined with insulation from overall market volatility.

We believe the reason many bond investors are maintaining high balances in low-yielding money markets right now is because they've been scared into thinking the value of their investment will decline sharply if interest rates rise. They may well be right. They may be wrong. We do not know with certainty. However, we do know with certainty that approach has been dead wrong over the last 12-18 months and it may continue to be the wrong strategy for another 12-18 months.

When implemented responsibly, a successful foreign exchange hedging strategy can go beyond mitigating foreign exchange risk to actually improving the bottom line of a global business, according to a paper from SVB Capital. The author addresses the impact of currency exchange rates as well as best practices for implementing a hedging strategy.

This report analyses, from an investment perspective, the features of ecological /organic agriculture that make it an attractive option for those considering investment in agriculture/farmland and particularly for those investors with an SRI/ESG understanding.

Credit Suisse researchers compare styles that have worked since the Feb. 5 market low with those that have worked up to the mid-January peak. Low P/E and low P/B have been two of the few styles to outperform in both periods. Researchers screen for outperform-rated stocks that trade on a P/E and P/B discount to their sector and the market and have earnings revisions better than their sector and the market.

Coller Capital's annual survey tracks private equity trends in emerging markets and investors' plans related to those markets. Among this year's findings: Investors expect their new commitment to emerging market private equity to accelerate over the next two years, and most of these investors expect this sector to outperform private equity as a whole.

Hammond Associates puts empirical studies of asset allocation in perspective, starting with the 1988 study by Brinson, Hood and Beebower and working through subsequent research efforts. The author believes these often quoted and sometimes misinterpreted studies are limited in scope and the types of assets they explore and, thus, do not provide useful guidance for all asset allocation situations.