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4 October 2026
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Investors may be overlooking a timeless source of returns in a volatile market. The companies that consistently generate and return cash to shareholders have often proved remarkably resilient through uncertainty.
Markets climbed a wall of worry in FY26, but artificial intelligence remained the dominant force, rewarding some of the world’s biggest companies while leaving others behind.
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.
A cow for her milk, a stock for her dividends. Investors are too quick to dismiss this valuation technique.
War brings immense human suffering and geopolitical chaos, but historically, equity markets have shown a certain detachment and resilience amid conflict, leading to increased profitability despite initial panic.
Global equity markets have experienced stellar returns in 2024 and 2025 led, in large part, by the boom in AI. Which sector could be the next star in global markets? This names three future winners.
The ASX seems a market split between the haves and have nots, or those with growth and momentum and those without. In this environment, opportunity favours those willing to look beyond the obvious.
Leveraged ETFs seek to deliver some multiple of an underlying index or reference asset’s return over a day. Yet, they aren’t even delivering the target return on an average day as they’re meant to do.
It might not be quite an ‘everything bubble’ but there’s froth in many assets, not just US stocks, right now. It might be time to stress test your portfolio and consider assets that could offer you shelter if trouble is coming.
In any year since 1875, if you'd invested in the ASX, turned away and come back eight years later, your average return would be 120% with no negative periods. It's just one of the must-have stats that all investors should know.
The ASX is shrinking not by accident, but by design. A governance model that rewards detachment over ownership is driving capital into private hands and weakening public markets.
Blackberry clung on to the superiority of keyboards at the beginning of the touchscreen era and paid the ultimate price. Could the rise of agentic AI and a new generation of hardware do something similar to Apple?
Conventional wisdom encourages retirees to preserve superannuation. But if those likely to qualify for the Age Pension later in life spend a little more today, it may deliver higher lifetime income and a more stable retirement.
For generations, Australian investors have backed banks, miners and dividends. But has that loyalty come at a cost? A look at the numbers raises an uncomfortable question about where future returns will come from.
The fight over testamentary trusts looked settled. Then the draft legislation arrived. Hidden in a technical detail is a question that could force many families to rethink wills they thought were already future-proof.
Reversionary pensions have long been a staple of SMSF estate planning, but are they still the best option? Meg Heffron revisits a once-clear favourite and asks whether changing super rules have shifted the balance.
The 4% rule has long been retirement's gold standard. But after a difficult period for investors, fresh analysis suggests a more conservative approach may significantly improve the chances of making savings last.
Investors have long accepted one portfolio rule without much question. A major tax shift could change that calculation entirely, forcing difficult trade-offs between risk, discipline and an overlooked cost lurking beneath.