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4 October 2025
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Phil Ruthven on confidence, Jack Gray on new ideas, Lyndsay Maxsted and Kerr Neilson at a Morningstar Conference, Ashley Owen on Asian families and property.
Confidence is important but can be misleading in terms of what is actually going on. Our emotions, which make us human, need to be balanced by facts, especially when we think times are grim.
A presentation or panel discussion is time well-spent if you can extract one new idea, and in Boston, a few were surprisingly original, including that it is better to think of the economy as a biological organism.
For many Asian families, getting money into safe haven countries often takes precedence over what to do with the money when it gets there. This year the hot fad was Australian residential property.
Chairman of Westpac, Lyndsay Maxsted, was refreshingly open at a recent Morningstar retail conference, and Kerr Neilson pleaded with investors to control their emotional responses to markets and stay the course.
In theory, improving prospects for economic growth and company earnings should be good for share prices. Nice theory, but not in the real world.
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.