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7 July 2025
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What was bothering markets in 2006? Try the end of cheap money, bond yields rising, high energy prices and record high commodity prices feeding inflation. Who says these are 'unprecedented' times? It's 2006 v 2022.
With higher unemployment and cautious consumers, portfolios should be positioned for lower sustainable demand compared with prior levels. Here are three key features of companies in a lower-demand world.
Dividend streams tend to be stable and determined by fundamental factors. Unlike capital valuations, which are affected by estimates of prospective returns which are, in turn, strongly affected by market sentiment.
The Small Ords index is running hot with many winners, but have fundamentals taken a back seat to momentum, unbounded optimism and the fear of missing out on the next big thing?
Is it better to position a portfolio with an over-reliance on economic growth expectations, or find companies winning market share, cutting costs, restructuring and acquiring independently of GDP hopes?
Investors chasing high yielding stocks without considering the fundamentals risk falling into the 'income trap', where weak businesses are eventually forced to reduce their dividends.
With Div. 296 looming, is there a smarter way to tax superannuation? This proposes a fairer, income-linked alternative that respects compounding, ensures predictability, and avoids taxing unrealised capital gains.
An ANU study has found that families with at least one super balance over $3 million have average wealth exceeding $19 million - suggesting most are well placed to absorb taxes on unrealised capital gains.
SMSFs have managed to match, or even outperform, larger super funds despite adopting more conservative investment strategies. This looks at how they've done it - and the potential policy implications.
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.
As the US debt ceiling looms, the usual warnings about a potential crash in bond and equity markets have started to appear. Investors can take confidence from history but should keep an eye on two main indicators.
US mega-cap tech stocks have dominated recent returns - but is familiarity distorting judgement? Like the Monty Hall problem, investing success often comes from switching when it feels hardest to do so.
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?