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22 December 2025
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APRA focus on CBA, a Royal flush on advice, perverse outcomes, manager selection, SPIVA lessons, why dividends matter, currency, earnings, El Camino.
The Royal Commission will change financial advice, focussing more directly on conflicts of interest and client best interests. What can you flush out of your adviser immediately?
Many people have changed their minds on whether the Royal Commission was a good idea. What the fact-finding reveals though is an age-old lesson in economics: outcomes gravitate toward incentives.
S&P's SPIVA (index versus active) data now spans 15 years of data on the performance of Australian managed funds. This study illuminates returns from sectors and styles, and investment lessons learned from it.
Financial advisers spend an inordinate amount of time selecting fund managers for their clients, but is the impact/effort matrix worth it. It's hard enough for good managers to even beat the index.
Dividend streams tend to be stable and determined by fundamental factors. Unlike capital valuations, which are affected by estimates of prospective returns which are, in turn, strongly affected by market sentiment.
Australian investors with foreign currency assets must consider whether to hedge the currency exposure, but the overall context of their portfolio is relevant or losses could be magnified.
Earnings downgrades are not always bad news. They may present buy-side opportunities if the stock is oversold. It's best to assess the circumstances via a checklist without panicking.
After decades of intense work in financial markets, including Asia-wide responsibilities, a sabbatical walk along Spain's Camino led to an unexpected mix of superannuation insights and dealing with death.
I’ve long seen Buffett as a flawed genius: a great investor though a man with shortcomings. With his final letter to Berkshire shareholders, I reflect on how my views of Buffett have changed and the legacy he leaves.
With rates on hold and housing demand strong, lenders are pushing boundaries. As risky products return, borrowers should be cautious and not let clever marketing cloud their judgment.
Retirement isn’t a clean financial arc. Income shocks, health costs and family pressures hit at random, exposing the limits of age-based planning and the myth of a predictable “retirement journey".
The superannuation system has succeeded brilliantly at what it was designed to do: accumulate wealth during working lives. The next challenge is meeting members’ diverse needs in retirement.
I am a professional real estate investor who hears a lot of opinions rather than facts from so-called experts on the topic of property. Here are the largest myths when it comes to Australia’s biggest asset class.
Two years ago, I wrote an article suggesting that the odds favoured ASX shares easily outperforming residential property over the next decade. Here’s an update on where things stand today.