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Home / Author: Ashley Owen

Ashley Owen

More please: FY2019 was almost everything up

If an investor had been living on the moon or under a rock for a year and returned on 30 June 2019, on seeing their portfolio, they would have thought it was a delightful year full of good news.

Why are Aussie bond yields at lowest ever?

Australian bond rates are now lower than during recessions and depressions of the past, but it's not driven by local fundamentals. The world of interest rates is in a place it's never been before in history.

Which political party is best for share prices?

Total returns from the local stock market have averaged 10.5% per year since Federation, with 12% p.a. under right-leaning governments and 8% p.a. under left-leaning governments. But it's mainly luck.

Commodity prices rescue 2019 Budget

The Budget surplus in the 2018-19 year is mainly due to fortuitous tax revenue gains from the mining boom. In the past five years, government spending has risen by an incredible 21%.

A few big companies drive market results

While hot stocks generate media coverage and attention from investors, for the overall health of the market, they are irrelevant. A few big companies drive the Australian market.

The end of six wonderful years for investing

There are enough negative factors in play to suggest great caution with asset allocation in portfolios, as a wonderful run of results for investors came to an end in 2018. Here are four common factors in market collapses.

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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