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23 December 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.
I’ve long seen Buffett as a flawed genius: a great investor though a man with shortcomings. With his final letter to Berkshire shareholders, I reflect on how my views of Buffett have changed and the legacy he leaves.
With rates on hold and housing demand strong, lenders are pushing boundaries. As risky products return, borrowers should be cautious and not let clever marketing cloud their judgment.
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.