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30 January 2026
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Passive and active investing, investment mistakes and insights, interpreting return on equity, and a look at Australia's listed real estate sector.
Making a passive investment requires an active decision, and since index-based funds are structured using market prices, they build in influences of the active factor of price momentum.
It's difficult for investors to find active fund managers that consistently outperform the market over multiple periods, and the claim that active managers do better in falling markets also lacks recent evidence.
The investment landscape might have changed dramatically over the last 25 years, but investors can still rely on many of the same principles from the past to make sound investment decisions in the present.
An important ratio for analysing companies is the ‘return on equity’, but while it may seem to be a simple measure of the earning power of a business, it can tell much more.
Amid the ups and down of the current A-REIT reporting season, the listed real estate sector performed relatively well, and most managers have not been tempted to boost returns by increasing gearing.
What are the best ways to build a simple portfolio from scratch? I’ve addressed this issue before but think it’s worth revisiting given markets and the world have since changed, throwing up new challenges and things to consider.
At this time last year, I forecast that 2025 would likely be a positive year given strong economic prospects and disinflation. The outlook for this year is less clear cut and here is what investors should do.
Treasury has released draft legislation for a new version of the controversial $3 million super tax. It's a significant improvement on the original proposal but there are some stings in the tail.
The renowned investor says 2025’s real story wasn’t AI or US stocks but the shift away from American assets and a collapse in the value of money. And he outlines how to best position portfolios for what’s ahead.
The predictions include dividends will outstrip growth as a source of Australian equity returns, US market performance will be underwhelming, while US government bonds will beat gold.
We don’t have a housing shortage; we have housing misallocation. This explores why so many bedrooms go unused, what’s been tried before, and five things to unlock housing capacity – no new building required.