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8 October 2025
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Chris Cuffe on company engagement; write-offs, tangibles and intangibles; ATO surveillance of SMSFs; wagering and financial services; and characteristics of skilled managers.
SMSFs are being targeted by property marketers, but is a single, illiquid investment a good super strategy, with its associated leverage? ASIC is worried SMSF trustees are not seeing the full picture, so we went looking.
Don’t judge the extent to which institutional investors influence listed companies by the big public event, the AGM. Private meetings with executives of listed companies are ongoing and lively.
If high levels of intangibles are not written down by the auditors – even after years of generating mediocre returns – the market will often do the writing down for them. Either way, shareholders receive lousy returns.
The ATO will step up surveillance of SMSFs in 2013/14, and trustees need to ensure their fund is compliant. There are rules around the acquisition of assets, especially related party transactions.
There are insightful parallels between the bookmaking industry and the financial services sector, and it would help if market analysts and fund researchers assigned odds to their predictions.
The key to good investing is knowing when the odds are in your favour, and equally important, knowing how to apply that edge. With experience, it should give the confidence to run more concentrated portfolios.
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.