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4 December 2025
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We tend to forget that house prices often fall. Direct lending controls are more effective than rate rises because macroprudential limits affect the volume of money for housing leaving business rates untouched.
The long current positive run for the Australian stock market is unusual but not a warning of imminent demise. Previous long positive runs were not all followed by corrections but this one may end this month.
A comprehensive study of the impact of inflation on returns from different assets over the past 120 years. The high returns in recent years are due to low inflation and falling rates but this ‘sweet spot’ is ending.
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.
China takes 40% of our exports and BHP, RIO and Fortescue generate 41% of Australian listed company profits. Trade tensions are hitting more companies and they need to diversify their revenue sources.
The global tech run paused in September but the boom is driven by rising prices rather than actual profits. It will end when global confidence in the prospect of endless monetary and fiscal stimulus runs out.
In an interview with Firstlinks, CEO Mark Freeman discusses how speculative ASX stocks have crushed blue chips this year, companies he likes now, and why he’s confident AFIC’s NTA discount will close.
The ASX's performance this year has again highlighted a persistent riddle facing investors – how to approach an index reliant on a few sectors and handful of stocks. Here are some ideas on how to build a durable portfolio.
Despite three years under the retirement income covenant, regulators warn a growing gap between leading and lagging super funds, driven by poor member insights and patchy outcomes measurement.
The ASX seems a market split in two: between the haves and have nots; or those with growth and momentum and those without. In this environment, opportunity favours those willing to look beyond the obvious.
OpenAI’s business model isn't sustainable in the long run. If markets catch on, the company could face higher borrowing costs, or worse, and that would have major spillover effects.
‘Hyperscalers’ including Google, Meta and Microsoft are fuelling an unprecedented surge in equity and debt issuance to bankroll massive AI-driven capital expenditure. History shows this isn't without risk.
Leveraged ETFs seek to deliver some multiple of an underlying index or reference asset’s return over a day. Yet, they aren’t even delivering the target return on an average day as they’re meant to do.