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Reece Birtles

Rosy markets ignore darker dividend outlook for ASX

Investors are determined to cling to the idea of a goldilocks scenario for the Australian economy. Meanwhile, company updates paint a picture worse than any we’ve seen post-COVID.

A new income scorecard for the ASX 200

ASX reporting season focuses on how earnings compare to forecasts, yet there's little mention of how dividends perform versus expectations. A new scorecard aims to rectify this to help income-focused portfolios.

Reporting Season will show cost control and pricing power

Companies have been slow to update guidance and we have yet to see the impact of inflation expectations in earnings and outlooks. Companies need to insulate costs from inflation while enjoying an uptick in revenue.

Reece Birtles on selecting stocks for income in retirement

Equity investing comes with volatility that makes many retirees uncomfortable. A focus on income which is less volatile than share prices, and quality companies delivering robust earnings, offers more reassurance.

Achieving a sufficient retirement income portfolio

Retirees require a reliable income stream to replace the wages they received when they were working and should focus on the dollar income generated over time rather than the headline yield percentage.

Invest in Australian value stocks before it is too late

By now, we know 'growth' stocks have outperformed 'value' for many years and investors look to the future, but there are good reasons why the switch is on, especially as value companies emerge from the pandemic.  

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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 Blue chips aren’t immune to failure, and the old belief that you can simply hold them forever is outdated.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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