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23 August 2026
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AI may prove as transformative as the internet, but markets are behaving as if success is guaranteed. As capital races towards unprecedented levels, investors should ask whether enthusiasm is getting ahead of reality.
With Australia likely to attract a growing share of AI-related issuance, investors should prepare for increasing influence from AI funding demands, evolving credit fundamentals and changing valuation dynamics.
When data arrived, basketball abandoned the mid-range shot, Formula 1 reinvented the pit stop and chess embraced humans working with machines. Active managers confronting today's markets may learn from the same path.
We asked ten fund managers the same question following FY26. While their investment styles differ dramatically, their answers revealed several surprising areas of agreement about where markets may be heading next.
While markets obsess over AI winners, a larger, more predictable growth engine is forming. A surge in electricity demand and infrastructure build‑out reveals the quiet, durable assets evolving beneath the AI story.
Why are tech giants pouring billions into datacentres when the economics look questionable? The most dangerous words in investing may be: "everyone else is doing it". Today's AI boom has striking parallels with the shale bust.
AI is already reshaping the economy, but companies building transformative technologies rarely capture the greatest long-term value. Instead, those benefits accrue to the users. We may well see this pattern reproduced.
Global growth is facing mounting pressure from war, higher oil prices, inflation and trade tensions. But a wave of AI-related investment may prove powerful enough to support economic activity and reshape the outlook for markets.
Beneath the dominance of the ASX's largest stocks, much of the market has been left behind. High-quality companies are now trading at levels rarely seen, offering opportunities for investors willing to look deeper.
AI exuberance is colliding with economic reality. Cracks are emerging as spending surges, ROI remains uncertain and enterprise behaviour shifts. The next phase may look less like an expansion and more like a reckoning.
As private markets expand, investors face a growing mix of structures, a stabilising private equity cycle and uneven AI disruption. Fresh questions are being raised about where the real opportunities now sit.
Machine learning has been touted a game changer investment management. But a new study overturns claims that AI can generate positive alpha in mutual funds. Here are some practical takeaways for investors.
Treasury has confirmed the exemption many families were hoping for. But buried in the fine print are two conditions that could leave some wills on the wrong side of the exemption, despite years of careful planning.
After four decades advising investors, there are a few common mistakes I've seen SMSF investors make. From holding too much cash and chasing yield to overtrading and trusting tips. Are these errors costing you?
Lithium's latest sell-off has punished ASX miners as prices remain hostage to shifting expectations. The key challenge is navigating a market prone to extreme volatility despite a strong case for the long-term demand outlook.
For the last few years there has been much talk of a 'cost-of-living' crisis in Australia and of 'falling living standards'. Lately this has flared up again with the pickup in inflation resulting in a renewed fall in real wages.
New data challenges the idea that Australians are underspending their super. The bigger issue may be helping retirees navigate complexity, make confident decisions and use their savings to support security, wellbeing and choice.
A little-noticed consequence of Labor’s tax changes could have implications well beyond investors’ tax bills. The issue raises bigger questions about incentives, capital allocation and the drivers of long-term economic growth.