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21 November 2025
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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.
Retirement isn’t a clean financial arc. Income shocks, health costs and family pressures hit at random, exposing the limits of age-based planning and the myth of a predictable “retirement journey".
With fertility rates at a record low, many say young people aren’t having kids because they’re too expensive. Turns out, it’s not that simple and there are likely other factors at play.
Passive ETFs have become wildly popular just as markets, especially the US, reach extreme valuations. For long-term investors, these ETFs make sense, though if you're investing in them to chase performance, look out below.
The Big Four banks shrugged off doomsayers with their recent results, posting low loan losses, solid margins, and rising dividends. It underscores their resilience, but lofty valuations mean it’s time to be selective.
AI is booming, but like the 19th-century gold rush, the real profits may go to those supplying the tools and energy, not the companies at the centre of the rush.
Economic experts, including the RBA, get plenty of forecasts wrong, but that doesn't make such forecasts worthless. The key isn't to predict perfectly – it's to understand the range of possibilities and plan accordingly.
Wealth keeps growing, yet few ask “how much is enough?” or what their kids truly need. After 23 years in philanthropy, I’ve seen how unexamined wealth can limit impact, and why Australia needs a stronger giving culture.