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7 October 2025
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Chris Cuffe's views on risk, the paradox of living longer, the need for super funds to provide individual reporting, how to manage for real returns, and an interview with Ken Henry on opportunities for Australian businesses.
Risk means different things to different people, and there is a misallocation of resources, energy and intellect across the superannuation industry (and investment industry more broadly) to address risk.
Living longer does not necessarily translate into financial freedom. The hope is that you can work longer and therefore have more savings for your retirement, but people have less income-earning years.
There is a significant leadership opportunity for super funds to manage real return risk, where the inflation risk represents a potential erosion of retirement outcomes.
Super funds should provide a calculation of a member’s actual average return over their period of membership based on their own personal cash flow of contributions and fees experienced.
The Australian businesses likely to succeed in the Asian century are those that provide goods or services to the 3.2 billion middle-class consumers living in Asia within 15 years.
This AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. Just like fibre in 2000, shale in 2014, and cannabis in 2019, the technology or product is real but the capital cycle will be brutal. Investors beware.
An explosion in low-skilled migration to Australia has depressed wages, killed productivity, and cut rental vacancy rates to near decades-lows. It’s time both sides of politics addressed the issue.
LICs are continuing to struggle with large discounts and frustrated investors are wondering whether it’s worth holding onto them. This explains why the next 6-12 months will be make or break for many LICs.
Australian housing’s 50-year boom was driven by falling rates and rising borrowing power — not rent or yield. With those drivers exhausted, future returns must reconcile with economic fundamentals. Are we ready?
Younger Australians think they’ll need $100k a year in retirement - nearly double what current retirees spend. Expectations are rising fast, but are they realistic or just another case of lifestyle inflation?
This week, I got the news that my mother has dementia. It came shortly after my father received the same diagnosis. This is a meditation on getting old and my regrets in not getting my parents’ affairs in order sooner.