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Ashley Owen

Invest like Buffett? Diversification, Part 2

How is Buffett anything like a 60-year-old retiree who either cannot or does not want to work full-time anymore? Despite what the books say, you can't 'invest like Buffett' and focus on preservation of capital in retirement.

Diversification works?

Nobody ever built a great business, or created a great nation, or amassed a great fortune, or became a great painter or musician or sportsperson or anything else, by diversifying. You need to specialise, concentrate and focus.

Investing against the herd, Part 3, Testing the theory

An 'against the herd' portfolio is some 54% higher than the 'follow the herd’ portfolio, and 22% better than a passive portfolio. Ignore the market hype and general sentiment and focus instead on the facts.

Once in a lifetime returns from US shares

Not only has the US market returned 39% in Australian dollars over the past 9 months, volatility has not been lower since the mid-2000s. It has been the best run of consistent, high returns in my lifetime.

Investing against the herd, Part 2, Consumer sentiment and equity returns

Investors tend to believe that markets will keep going in the same direction they have been in the recent past - both on the way up and on the way down. Consumer sentiment peaks at the same time as the market.

Investing against the herd: resisting emotion

Investors who follow the herd invariably end up buying near the tops when everybody else is buying and selling near the bottom. Investors need to resist the temptation to get caught up in the hype of the daily news and noise.

Latest Updates

Economy

Why have Australian living standards 'fallen' and how do we fix it?

For the last few years there has been much talk of a 'cost-of-living' crisis in Australia and of 'falling living standards'. Lately this has flared up again with the pickup in inflation resulting in a renewed fall in real wages.

Latest from Morningstar

Four options for an income investor’s next dollar

What if Australia’s golden age of dividends is ending? Rather than overhaul your portfolio, it may be worth considering where new capital can work harder. I discuss four income strategies and the trade-offs behind each.

Taxation

Completing the reform of CGT: tax real losses like real gains

Recent CGT reforms tax real gains by indexing capital gains to inflation. However, the reform fails to index losses, leading to higher tax on assets that do not keep pace with inflation, creating inefficiencies in the tax system.

Investment strategies

Blockbuster AI debt issuance coming to a bond market near you

With Australia likely to attract a growing share of AI-related issuance, investors should prepare for increasing influence from AI funding demands, evolving credit fundamentals and changing valuation dynamics.

Investment strategies

Active managers: Bringing a gun to the gunfight

When data arrived, basketball abandoned the mid-range shot, Formula 1 reinvented the pit stop and chess embraced humans working with machines. Active managers confronting today's markets may learn from the same path.

Retirement

What Australian super funds can learn from the UK

Most people want answers to three retirement questions: What have I got? Is it enough? What can I do with it? A leading UK pension innovator shares his lessons on helping members better understand and prepare for retirement.

Investment strategies

What the market may be missing in FY27

We asked ten fund managers the same question following FY26. While their investment styles differ dramatically, their answers revealed several surprising areas of agreement about where markets may be heading next.

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