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Wednesday, 20 January 2021
Recently trending 24 hot stocks and funds for 2021The hazards of asset allocation in a late-stage major bubbleSeven steps to easier management of your estateFive reasons Australian small companies are compelling investmentsRetirement changes everything: a post-retirement investing framework
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At some point, policymakers will turn to the task of deleveraging, to work off massive debt burdens built up during the pandemic. Australia is already ticking the boxes on many policies used in the past.
Markets always come back to fundamentals, valuations and liquidity, even when faced with a global pandemic. The key question is whether liquidity can hold up the market as the economic storm hits.
Equity market vigilanties, particularly resisting poor Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), are showing the benefits of active managers not simply buying everything put in front of them.
Australia's major banks face many challenges but they are strong and remarkably adaptive and resilient. They have also finally accepted they are too big to behave badly.
Collectibles are everywhere, from old cars, to sneakers, to wine, to cards and anything old and prized. But even if a collectible once attracted thousands of followers, what happens when the fans lose interest?
Let compounding do its work. It starts slowly. This is why many of those who start an investment programme (or fitness programme, dietary change, sport, or business) give up in the early stages.
The Australian market overall finished flat for calendar 2020, but the pandemic delivered big wins and losses. The companies, sectors and companies you invested in delivered vastly different results.
For investors who have the scale, long-term investment horizon and lack of liquidity requirements, it makes sense to implement an asset allocation that can take advantage of a lack of constraints.
At the start of the 20th century, a 'Gilded Age' for plutocrats created vast fortunes and economic inequality surged. COVID is having the same impact now, but portfolios can be adapted to respond to the opportunities.
The Grantham article everyone is quoting, in full. "The long, long bull market since 2009 has finally matured into a fully-fledged epic bubble ... this could very well be the most important event of your investing lives."
Growth was the place to be through the pandemic while value managers couldn't catch a break. It's the long run that matters but 2020 delivered pleasure or pain for many managers.