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31 October 2025
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With investor sentiment shifting and ETFs surging ahead, we pit Australia’s biggest LICs against their ETF rivals to see which delivers better returns over the short and long term. The results are revealing.
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More Australians are retiring with larger mortgages and less super. This paper explores how unlocking housing wealth can help ease the nation’s growing retirement cashflow crunch.
Investing in the ASX 20 or 200 requires vigilance. Blue chips aren’t immune to failure, and the old belief that you can simply hold them forever is outdated.
The rules to age successfully include, 'the unexamined life lasts longer', 'change no more than one-eighth of your life at a time', 'nobody is thinking about you', and 'pursue virtue but don’t sweat it'.
Adding high-quality compounders at attractive valuations is difficult in an efficient market. However, during the volatile FY25 reporting season, an opportunity arose to increase a position in Mexican fast-food chain GYG.
Factor-based ETFs are bridging the gap between active and passive investing, giving investors low-cost access to proven drivers of long-term returns such as quality, value, momentum and dividend yield.
In Breakneck, Dan Wang contrasts China’s “engineering state” with America’s “lawyerly society,” showing how these mindsets drive innovation, dysfunction, and reshape global power amid rising rivalry.
Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 635 3
Governments around the world keep recklessly spending, and investors can benefit. Defence, software, infrastructure and land lease communities are among the sectors poised to ride this long-term secular trend. Read More.
With $233 billion under management, managed accounts are evolving into diversified, transparent, and liquid investment frameworks. The rise of ETFs and private markets marks a shift in portfolio design and discipline.
You can’t freely withdraw your super before 65. You need to meet certain legal conditions tied to your age, whether you’ve retired, or if you're using a transition to retirement option.
Navigating retirement concessions is unnecessarily complex. This outlines a new project to help older Australians find what they’re entitled to - quickly, clearly, and with less stress.
The NSW government is cutting the use of consultants. Universities have also been criticized for relying on consultants as cover for restructuring plans. But are consultants really the problem they're made out to be?
If you need income then buying dividend stocks makes perfect sense. But if you don’t then it makes little sense because it’s likely to limit building real wealth. Here’s what you should do instead.
Labor is reviewing the $3 million super tax's most contentious aspects: lack of indexation and the tax on unrealised gains. Those fighting for change shouldn’t just settle for indexation of the threshold.
The Future Fund says it will not be paying defined benefit pensions until at least 2033 - raising as many questions as answers. This points to an increasingly uncertain future for Australia's sovereign wealth fund.
Government spending is out of control and there's little sign that Labor will curb it. We need enforceable rules on spending and an empowered budget office to ensure governments act responsibly with taxpayers money.
Five mega trends point to risks of a more inflation prone and lower growth environment. This, along with rich market valuations, should constrain medium term superannuation returns to around 5% per annum.
When change comes we have three paths: ignore it, try to soften its blow, or adapt to it. Australia leans hard on mitigation for climate change but neglects adaptation, leaving us exposed and unprepared.
AI hype oversells machine 'intelligence', masking its true nature as pattern replication. This flood of synthetic content threatens trust and fairness - underscoring the enduring need for thoughtful human oversight.
With rising home prices and falling affordability, political leaders preach reform. But asset disclosures show many are heavily invested in property - raising doubts about whose interests housing policy really protects.
Both active and passive investing can work, but active investment doesn’t in the way it is practised by many fund managers and passive investing doesn’t work in the way most end investors practise it. Here’s a better way.
Commercial property is seeing the same supply issues as the residential market. Given the chronic undersupply and a recent pickup in demand, it bodes well for an upturn in commercial real estate prices.
Privatised toll roads in Australia help governments avoid upfront costs but often push financial risks onto taxpayers while creating monopolies and unfair toll burdens for commuters and businesses.
In any year since 1875, if you'd invested in the ASX, turned away and come back eight years later, your average return would be 120% with no negative periods. It's just one of the must-have stats that all investors should know.
Market shocks and rallies test every investor’s resolve. This explores practical strategies to stay grounded - resisting panic in downturns and FOMO in booms - while focusing on long-term returns.
Bonds have had a tough few years and many investors are turning to other assets to diversify their portfolios. However, bonds can still play a valuable role as a source of income and risk mitigation.
The $3 million super tax has many rethinking their super strategies, especially issues of wealth transfer on death. This reviews the taxes on super benefits and offers investment alternatives.
For much of Australia’s history, each new generation has been better off than the last: better jobs and incomes as well as improved living standards. A new report assesses whether this time may be different.
Inspired by the papal conclave, this explores how families can avoid post-death drama through honest conversations, better planning, and trial runs - so there are no surprises when it really matters.
Trusts offer flexibility and asset protection, but in relationship breakdowns, courts can 'look through' them. Understanding control, purpose, and asset origins is key to preserving trust benefits in family law disputes.
Life expectancy isn't just a number - it's a concept that changes with survival rates over time. This article breaks down how age, survival, and societal factors shape our understanding of life expectancy, especially post-Covid.
Lately, there's been a push by Government for lifetime income streams as a solution to retirement income challenges. We run the numbers on these products to see whether they deliver on what they promise.
As more money looks for a home outside the US, Asia may soon get some love. Fidelity's Anthony Srom outlines the best places in Asia to invest, including in Chinese consumer names, Indian financials, and Thailand.
Stockland’s development chief discusses supply constraints, government initiatives and the impact of Japanese-owned homebuilders on the industry. He also talks of green shoots in a troubled property market.
Portfolio Manager Ted Alexander outlines the changes that he's made to Platinum's International Fund portfolio since taking charge in March, while staying true to its contrarian, value-focused roots.
Despite a recent pullback, gold has been one of the best performing assets this year. What are the key factors behind the rise and what's needed for the bull market in the yellow metal to continue?
MFS chief investment officer and CEO elect Ted Maloney talks market risks, similarities between Trump and Harris, and the most important thing investors can do to avoid destroying value.
In a recent interview, Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor explains why low-cost investing wins, how artificial intelligence and ESG will bring lots of opportunities, and why distractions are an investor's worst enemy.
Which companies have been the best performers on the ASX over the past 20 years, and what characteristics made them special? A new report looks at the keys to their success, and the lessons for investors going forward.
As the gold price heads to the stratosphere and people line up to buy the yellow metal, I recount my journey of owning gold for 17 years, what I’ve learned along the way, and what I’m doing now with my holdings.
Markets are starting to feel like 1999 and a blowoff top isn’t out of the question. There are differences to back then though, with gold at record highs, rates easing, and AI producing extraordinary winners but also ‘quiet’ losers.
A new report suggests the Division 296 tax will raise far more tax than original Treasury estimates. It’s partly due to the ballooning size of SMSFs over the past two years.
Macquarie accounted for a staggering 39% share of new home loans in July and one fundie thinks it poses a significant threat to the Big Four banks over the next decade. If right, it would spell trouble for the broader ASX 200 index too.
Markets and life require making decisions, often big ones. Here are five decision making tools I’ve found useful, including sticking with something you can do for life, and if you’re not saying, “HELL YEAH!” about something, say no.
How does a strategy built around systematically buying-and-holding a basket of the market's biggest losers perform? It turns out pretty well, so why don't more investors do it?
The structure of many dividend ETFs leads to lacklustre or non-existent dividend growth. Balancing high yields with long-term dividend growth is essential for effective income investing.
One of Buffett's most successful investments has been a confectionery company that he bought more than 50 years ago. The investment demonstrates that stocks need not be growth companies to create fortunes.
Shani Jayamanne takes a deliberately uninterested approach to investing. She outlines the technical and circumstantial reasons for why she goes against the grain and focuses on the real drivers of investment success.
Why do people have trouble shifting from a saving to spending mindset in retirement? Researchers have plenty of theories though can't identify an exact cause, nevertheless there are things that can enable the shift.
online event: SMSF Clinic for professionals, 11 Nov 2025.
to list its Uranium and Energy Innovation ETF (ASX:URAN) on 30 October 2025.
Investment podcast with David Colosimo – October 2025.
Australia boasts one of the world's highest dividend yielding sharemarkets, providing substantial benefits to investors and retirees. Despite this, individuals often stretch for even more yield, to their detriment.
Borrowing to invest provides greater exposure to the share market and its potential gains or losses, as well as more associated franking credits. However, there are additional risks and costs to consider.
For those with the patience to own an investment as volatile as the AI sector, buying and holding a stock basket might make sense. However, based on internet stocks’ history, you need not rush to do so.
Stocks always outperform bonds in the long-term, right? New research challenges that assumption, raising questions about historical financial data, and forecasts for future performance from the two largest asset classes.