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25 December 2025
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SMSFs avoid franking loss, 3 key bank risks, super changes, investing like sport, Asia drives real assets, BBB bond worries, ETF thematic investing.
If Labor legislates to withdraw franking credit refunds, retirees have an alternative for their pension superannuation to retain the refund. It shows the proposal does not have 'horizontal equity' between structures.
Australia's major banks face many challenges but they are strong and remarkably adaptive and resilient. They have also finally accepted they are too big to behave badly.
If you have been maintaining a small inactive superannuation fund purely for insurance purposes, you need to act quickly to avoid losing cover which might be difficult to replace.
Structuring an investment team around geography or sectors leads to manager bias in poor sectors. Better to focus on a few areas of fascination where product and business expertise can develop.
Real assets such as airports will benefit significantly from a massive growth in Asian tourism and a growing middle class, and are less subject to the vagaries of the business cycle.
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.
Thematic trend investors relies more on recognising how the world is changing over the long term, and finding sectors that will benefit, rather than the more cyclical approach of picking short-term winners.
The 'direct investment options' may have structural advantages for franking credit refunds, but that does not mean SMSFs do not have their own specific advantages. What's best for the superannuant?
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.
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.
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.
In an interview with Firstlinks, CEO Mark Freeman discusses how speculative ASX stocks have crushed blue chips this year, companies he likes now, and why he’s confident AFIC’s NTA discount will close.
What should you do if you think this market is grossly overvalued? While it’s impossible to predict the future, it is possible to prepare, and here are three tips on how to best construct your portfolio for what’s ahead.