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2 July 2025
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In a talk with MBA students, legendary investor Howard Marks suggests forecasting and economists are a waste of time. He prefers to understand investor psychology and security pricing to get the edge in markets.
The billions and trillions in the funds management industry show the extent of its influence, but who controls the money, and how do platforms, managed funds, superannuation, listed and unlisted funds fit together?
While the ATO has many ways to watch taxpayer transactions and ensure tax is collected, for some unknown reason, it is legal to select from four different cost base treatments for capital gains tax. It's costing billions.
Harry Markowitz died last week at the age of 95. He was the 1990 Nobel Laureate and the father of Modern Portfolio Theory. He explained to me the magic moment when he realised how risk-return in portfolios works.
SMSF trustees want control over their investments and think they can perform better than professional investors. Claims of an impending fall are not supported by the data, and older trustees are investing even more.
Platforms are an integral part of the financial advice process, delivering efficiencies to advisers and allowing them to cover more clients. But one platform will never be the holy grail as every client is different.
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?