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Wednesday, 12 August 2020
Recently trending After 30 years of investing, I prefer to skip this partyAustralian house prices: Part 2, the bigger picture How to handle the riskiest company results in historyAustralian house prices: Part 1, how worried should we be?Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 367
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Citi's clients tap into their own views to find investments that suit their portfolios, often working across global boundaries. It's a search for solutions in a world with no risk-free returns.
Rob Arnott is a leading researcher, fund manager and academic often quoted in US media. We chatted at a moment in time when President Trump must make some critical calls on coronavirus.
While coronavirus has brought into sharp focus the risks in bond portfolios, markets are always changing. Relative value and risks must be constantly watched as opportunities are presented.
The Morningstar CEO on democratising investing, why saving in your youth is crucial, and why most investors care more about paying off their debts than comparing their results against benchmarks.
An active manager of cash and fixed interest funds can achieve higher returns than the cash rate through a selection of other securities while managing both liquidity and income for clients.
A global portfolio of infrastructure assets allows trends in one part of the world to be recognised early in another, while companies with pricing power and high barriers to entry enjoy extra resilience.
1997 Nobel Laureate Robert Merton wants greater focus on the income that will sustain a retirement, and even Jane Austen understood this. And he has a surprising proposal to help with longevity risk.
After 35 years in fiduciary and leadership roles, the President of MFS Investment Management is clear about the major problem in wealth management: we have not convinced investors to think long term.
Two of Australia's most experienced and successful chairs explain what makes a good board, what to watch for in bad ones, with advice for aspiring board members: understand first what motivates you.
In the month when index US equity funds exceeded active funds for the first time in history, a look at the company which started it in 1975, with insider views on mass market financial advice.
Marketplace or P2P lending has come a long way in Australia in the last five years. Most investors will be surprised by the type of borrowers and purposes of the loans, and how they are priced.
The companies that earn a place in an investment portfolio are like the players in a sporting team. They must perform strongly and complement each other, and not keep someone out who is better.
Eventually, prices become so extreme they bear no relationship to reality, and a bubble forms. I believe we are there today, not for all stocks but for many in the technology space.
There is good reason to believe the negatives will continue to outweigh the positives over the next 12 to 18 months. There is more concern about house prices than the short-term indicators suggest.
It is better to miss a results bounce and buy after the company has delivered than it is to step on a landmine. With such uncertainty, avoid FOMO by following these result season investing tips.
Three key indicators are useful for predicting the short-term outlook for house prices, although tighter lockdowns make the outlook gloomier. There is enough doubt to create cause for concern.
There is a similarity between the current health crisis and economic crises of the past. For COVID-19, record amounts of biotech funding from government agencies and private companies are looking for a vaccine. Likewise, central banks once struggled treating recessions but the 'vaccine' now is record amounts of financial stimulus to ensure liquidity. While the world awaits a COVID treatment, markets are purring along, at least until side effects hit.
Imagine you had perfect foresight about COVID-19 at the start of the year. You correctly foresaw that the global pandemic would kill over 700,000 among 20 million infections by August. In Australia, borders would close, cities would be locked down, most mortgagors would be on income support and companies would be allowed to trade while insolvent. You then had to guess how much the stock market would fall. Would you say about 10%?