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22 July 2025
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A recent ruling from The Australian Financial Complaints Authority may herald a new era for financial scams. For the first time, a bank is being forced to reimburse a customer for the amount they were scammed.
The ways to avoid family disputes in a business is to have good communication, adequate preparation and helpful dispute resolution. Equality without governance and consensus can leave a business exposed.
We are publishing this anonymously knowing it comes from an impeccable source. Bernie Madoff’s fund was almost distributed to retail Australian investors a year before the largest-ever hedge fund fraud was exposed.
Risk isn’t something to be avoided altogether. To achieve returns beyond the government bond rate, some level of risk must be accepted. Assessing which risks to take and calibrating them is the investor's challenge.
Investors often overlook the capital risk in high-yielding stocks. It's better to ensure capital grows and investors can sell a portion each year to make up for the shortfall in income from dividends.
Many of Australia's bank directors lack crucial skills in technology, operations and HR as part of a broader shortage of experience that is as important in dodging scandals as in business success.
The Total Return Investing approach is elegant, it makes intuitive sense and like many investment strategies, it backtests well. But low rates suggest the theory will not hold in future.
Investors should construct an ‘optimal portfolio’ that broadly falls on the efficient frontier. A ‘high growth’ balanced portfolio can deliver higher returns with lower risk than equities alone.
To avoid retreating from making investment decisions during uncertainty, investors are compelled to rely on 'rules of thumb' to guide them in decision-making. Here are many of the more popular commonly-used rules.
Most companies recognise the benefits of employee diversity for better decision-making, but it's not only about choosing people from different backgrounds. There must be an effective means of aggregating views.
Bond markets are far larger than stockmarkets, and the BBB segments in the largest of all in the corporate market. Many analysts have pointed to potential weaknesses but it pays to look a bit deeper.
Nobody revalues their own home each day in the way they revalue listed equities, but does that mean the value is constant? The daily unit price is calculated in some super funds using unlisted asset valuations.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers aims to tackle tax reform but faces challenges. Previous reviews struggled due to political sensitivities, highlighting the need for comprehensive and politically feasible change.
You've no doubt heard about Division 296. These case studies show what people at various levels above the $3 million threshold might need to pay the ATO, with examples ranging from under $500 to more than $35,000.
The $3m super tax could be put down to the Government needing money and the wealthy being easy targets. It’s deeper than that though and this looks at the factors behind the policy and why more taxes on the wealthy are coming.
Business investment and per capita GDP have languished over the past decade and the Labor Government is conducting inquiries to find out why. Franking credits should be part of the debate about our stalling economy.
With Div. 296 looming, is there a smarter way to tax superannuation? This proposes a fairer, income-linked alternative that respects compounding, ensures predictability, and avoids taxing unrealised capital gains.
In selling the super tax, Labor has repeated Treasury claims of there being $50 billion in super tax concessions annually, mostly flowing to high-income earners. This figure is vastly overstated.