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18 September 2025
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A nascent theme today is that the inverse correlation between bonds and stocks has returned as inflation and economic growth moderate. This broadens the potential for risk-adjusted returns in multi-asset portfolios.
It isn't too late for investors to own bonds and take advantage of this early stage of the rate-cutting cycle. What's more, bonds are regaining their ability to be a genuine diversifier within portfolios.
The rise of trading discounts in closed-ended funds has challenged investors. This latest research suggests that funds that exhibit high volatility or beta tend to trade at larger discounts to their net tangible asset values.
High bond-equity correlation suggests increased overall portfolio risk, making greater fixed income allocations crucial for managing volatility. While bonds no longer diversify portfolios as much, elevated yields make them attractive.
Warren Buffett is widely regarded as the most successful investor ever. Rather than keep his secret sauce hidden, he's shared his knowledge for decades, so why aren't more investors able to replicate his methods and success?
Supposedly a defensive asset class, bonds have endured a horror four years. A massive boom preceded a massive bust, though the recent downdraft means future prospects appear brighter for high quality bonds.
Did you know you're far more likely to share genes with friends than non-friends? Or the number of friends you have is correlated to the size of certain parts of your brain? These are the latest findings of a famed psychologist.
The negative stock/bond correlation from 1998 until 2019 was the anomaly, not the positive relationship that began in 2022. In the years ahead, portfolio diversification should come increasingly from security and manager selection.
Last year was rough for investors, especially where equity and bond portfolios were not as diversified as they thought. Spreading the risk sounds simple but watch that funds are not all doing the same thing.
Claims that Bitcoin has characteristics of 'digital gold' by protecting against equity market falls in troubled times are not supported by recent price moves. Crypto relies on supporters pumping up speculative gains.
Multiple factors have seen gold fall in 2021, despite the rise in inflation. But given gold has performed strongly across longer periods of higher inflation, gold may benefit under the current inflation outlook.
While gold has been in a corrective pattern for the last year, a solid case can be made in the coming decade as investors with portfolios concentrated in equities and fixed income struggle for good returns.
Australia could unlock smarter investment and greater equity by reforming housing tax concessions. Rethinking exemptions on the family home could benefit most Australians, especially renters and owners of modest homes.
The creator of the 4% rule for retirement withdrawals, Bill Bengen, has written a new book outlining fresh strategies to outlive your money, including holding fewer stocks in early retirement before increasing allocations.
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.
Are franking credits factored into share prices? The data suggests they're probably not, and there are certain types of stocks that offer higher franking credits as well as the prospect for higher returns.
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.