Dividend imputation is a major attraction of investing in Australian shares, but there is widespread misunderstanding of the system. Many argue the proposed lower corporate tax rate will reduce franking credits and therefore lower after-tax returns, but the company tax rate is irrelevant. My first financial adviser from 30 years ago was an actuary, Graham Horrocks, and he explains the numbers. This is the first in a series Graham will write for Cuffelinks on common tax and superannuation misunderstandings.
Faced with uncertainty caused by rising US rates, Hamish Douglass is protecting capital and he reveals a cocktail of potentially explosive events has pushed him to hold more cash. The chart below shows how 10 year US Treasury bond yields have risen since September 2017.
Source: Bloomberg, US Treasury 10 year bond yields in 12 months to 7 March 2018.
How does anyone know if an active manager is doing a good job? Raewyn Williams says performance attribution can uncover whether a manager is worthwhile in a portfolio.
There is no one-rule-fits-all for retirement planning, and Melanie Dunn shares some SMSF data and describes a framework to decide whether Growing, Protecting or Spending (GPS) is appropriate. Still looking inside SMSFs, two new reports on investment patterns and contributions are analysed by Vinay Kolhatkar, and it's worth all trustees benchmarking their SMSFs against these summaries and recent ATO data.
In last week's lively debate (50+ comments!) on Peter Thornhill's article, there were suggestions to put corporate bonds into a portfolio. They have a place but Cameron Dawson warns about default rates which seem to hit the sector every decade or so.
Finally, some context on Donald Trump's crazy proposal to give guns to teachers in schools. We look at what happened when guns were common in bank branches, and while many of the stories are humorous, there's a serious message and a warning.
(As an aside, while we were collecting these stories, someone recalled a classic, previously unreported Paul Keating line. Keating was Treasurer during the early phase of the privatisation of CBA, and he was invited to meet the Board. A member asked Keating if he was confident Cabinet would approve the deal, to which he responded, "They'll piss in whatever direction I tell them to." He always had the perfect phrase to disarm and enforce).
Continuing the theme of asset manager selection, this week's White Paper from MFS International argues there is a serious mismatch between investment time horizons, with investors failing to consider the benefits of manager skill over a full market cycle.
Graham Hand, Managing Editor
Edition 243 | 9 Mar 2018 | Editorial | Newsletter