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26 October 2026
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A surprisingly high percentage of respondents believe 'This Time is Different'. They may be in for a tough time if history repeats as we have seen plenty of asset bubbles before. Do we have new rules for investing?
Many of our readers possess decades of investment experience. Let's share your lessons with those starting out, or is this time different, and your Living Years have left you 'prisoner to what you hold dear'?
The prospect of Australia's superannuation industry becoming larger than the domestic equity market, and expected merger activity among super funds, has raised concerns about common ownership and capital concentration.
Despite cutbacks in public service staff, we are spending over a billion dollars a year with five consulting firms. There is little public scrutiny on the value for money. How do consultants decide what to charge?
Rather than compare results against APRA's benchmark, large super funds which failed the YFYS performance test are using another measure such as a CPI+ target, with more favourable results to show their members.
Any policy decision needs to recognise who is affected by a change. It pays to check the data on who pays taxes, who owns assets and who earns the income to ensure an equitable and efficient outcome.
A decades-old estate planning tool has survived one tax crackdown only to be caught by another. The surprise isn't who the reform is targeting, but who could end up paying the price for drafting choices made years ago.
The 4% rule has survived decades of scrutiny, but Australia's retirement system changes the equation in ways most overlook. Before accepting or rejecting this rule of thumb, it pays to understand what really drives retirement outcomes.
A coal-heavy miner with governance concerns isn't the obvious choice for investors. Yet, Glencore's ASX listing may offer something BHP and Rio can't. The challenge is working out whether the opportunity outweighs the risks.
Investors are often told not to let tax policy drive their investment decisions. Yet, under the new CGT rules, portfolio construction, volatility and even how assets are owned may have an outsized impact on their final outcome.
What do frozen bank accounts, mortgage traps and pension penalties have in common? They're all symptoms of a system that makes life much harder. Yet the obvious solutions seem to have escaped the attention of Canberra.
Some of the important effects of rising public debt never make the headlines. Research shows the immediate effects may already be unfolding, influencing corporate behaviour in ways that many investors would never suspect.
Is fundamental investing losing its grip on markets? Investors continue to search for valuation-based explanations for every price move, but the dominant force behind short-term returns may be something else altogether.