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23 May 2022
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Different styles of investing are suited to different types of people. Knowing which style is best suited to your character and temperament can make a big difference to your investment outcomes.
Most investors seek re-assurance, certainty, confidence, comfort and rational explanations from finance professionals, but what they often get is jargon-laden confusion. We have much to learn about effective communication.
Despite previous failed attempts to inject a bit of the humanities into technical minds, we are reminded that Goethe, Elliot and other great poets actually can provide insights and wisdom to make for better investors.
Professor Bird and Dr Gray highlight the dominance of the financial sector in Australia’s economy in their submission to the Financial System Inquiry and question whether bigger is necessarily better.
Dr. Jack Gray continues his irregular, irritating series of dictionary narratives, with these sagacious insights into the world of financial jargon.
A presentation or panel discussion is time well-spent if you can extract one new idea, and in Boston, a few were surprisingly original, including that it is better to think of the economy as a biological organism.
With the Coalition losing the 2022 election, its policy to allow young people to access super goes back on the shelf. But lowering the downsizer age to 55 was supported by Labor. Check the merits of both policies.
In this environment, safe-haven assets like Government bonds act as a diversifier given the uncorrelated nature to equities during periods of risk-off, while offering a yield above term deposit rates.
A key attribute of great investors is the ability to abstract away the specifics of a particular domain, leaving only the important underlying principles upon which great investments can be made.
The Transfer Balance Cap limits the tax concessions available in super pension funds, removing the need for large, compulsory drawdowns. Plus there are no requirements to draw money out of an accumulation fund.
Companies tend to pre-position weak results ahead of 30 June, leading to earnings downgrades. The next two months will be critical for investors as a shift from ‘great expectations’ to ‘clear explanations’ gets underway.
We may have been extremely unlucky with the unforgiving weather plaguing the East Coast of Australia this year. However, on the economic front we are by many measures in a strong position relative to the rest of the world.
Discounts on LICs and LITs vary with market conditions, and many prominent managers have seen the value of their assets fall as well as discount widen. There may be opportunities for gains if discounts narrow.