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Caveat Emptor

Caveat Emptor: Lifetime annuities versus indexed bonds

A reader sent in an excellent question on the merits of lifetime annuities versus long term indexed bonds for post-retirement income. Jeremy Cooper and Elizabeth Moran make the case for each.

Caveat Emptor: LICs versus ETFs

We’ve asked two industry professionals to state their cases for and against these two investment types that are growing in popularity: Listed Investment Companies and Exchanged Traded Funds.

How does a retail investor access stocks before listing?

A reader wants to know how to access company floats before their listing on the ASX. Roger Montgomery explains it's probably a closed shop, but you can often wait until the market becomes bored and buy better.

More questions on QE

With the 'tapering' finally announced last night, it's as important as ever to understand what's happening. So when Rick Cosier asked some of the questions many would like answered, Warren Bird obliged.

Are income funds just arbitrage funds?

Australian equity income funds have become extremely popular as investors look for yield and income, but are they arbitrage funds by another name? Rudi Minbatiwala of the Colonial First State Equity Income Fund responds.

How risky are bank hybrids and are they misrepresented?

The search for yield has driven retail investors into billions of dollars of hybrids that could not be sold to wholesale investors at these levels. Is the full picture being told to the retail market?

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Investment strategies

LICs vs ETFs – which perform best?

With investor sentiment shifting and ETFs surging ahead, we pit Australia’s biggest LICs against their ETF rivals to see which delivers better returns over the short and long term. The results are revealing.

Retirement

The growing debt burden of retiring Australians

More Australians are retiring with larger mortgages and less super. This paper explores how unlocking housing wealth can help ease the nation’s growing retirement cashflow crunch.

The ASX is full of broken blue chips

Investing in the ASX 20 or 200 requires vigilance. Blue chips aren’t immune to failure, and the old belief that you can simply hold them forever is outdated. 

Shares

Buying Guzman y Gomez, and not just for the burritos

Adding high-quality compounders at attractive valuations is difficult in an efficient market. However, during the volatile FY25 reporting season, an opportunity arose to increase a position in Mexican fast-food chain GYG.

Investment strategies

Factor investing and how to use ETFs to your advantage

Factor-based ETFs are bridging the gap between active and passive investing, giving investors low-cost access to proven drivers of long-term returns such as quality, value, momentum and dividend yield. 

Strategy

Engineers vs lawyers: the US-China divide that will shape this century

In Breakneck, Dan Wang contrasts China’s “engineering state” with America’s “lawyerly society,” showing how these mindsets drive innovation, dysfunction, and reshape global power amid rising rivalry. 

Retirement

18 rules for ageing well

The rules to age successfully include, 'the unexamined life lasts longer', 'change no more than one-eighth of your life at a time', 'nobody is thinking about you', and 'pursue virtue but don’t sweat it'.

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