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27 June 2026
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Borrowing to invest provides greater exposure to the share market and its potential gains or losses, as well as more associated franking credits. However, there are additional risks and costs to consider.
Experienced traders on nabtrade boost their 'buy and hold' portfolios with shorter-term strategies based on their personal views of the world. These are not for everybody but show how some individuals react.
Financial leverage is already built into many real estate funds and companies, and borrowing even more to invest can produce spectacular results - on both the upside and the downside.
How could a managed fund lose 96.5% of its value and then gain 767%, to become both the worst and best performing fund in Australia? From financial crisis to recovery, the answer is in the timing and the structure.
The use of leverage within SMSFs has come under heavy scrutiny lately with strong arguments for and against. Some forms of 'protected' gearing can help manage risk, demonstrating that not all gearing is the same.
Where possible, we should be saving more, whether it's for retirement or a rainy day, but our human psyche seems to work against us. The key is to put money aside first and make the payments automatic.
In the financial and economic world, we use medians and averages to assess our position and make decisions about the future. But as each individual is different, aggregated statistics aren't always useful.
How well must the market perform for a geared portfolio to deliver better returns than a normal, ungeared portfolio? Or put another way, if the market index rises or falls 10%, how much will a geared strategy change in value?
Marketed as a fix for inequality and housing affordability, the latest budget instead delivers a tangle of tax changes that leave everyday Australians worse off.
Australia may not levy formal death duties, but a growing web of tax measures is quietly shaping what wealth passes between generations. Now, the 2026 budget adds another layer.
Inheritance tax implications in Australia may surprise some, as poor estate planning without proper wills or trusts can lead to costly tax bills and delays for beneficiaries.
Proposed Budget changes to taxation are casting new uncertainty over testamentary trusts, prompting closer scrutiny of estate planning structures and the real implications of reforms still taking shape.
A return to indexation of capital gains would be a fairer way to compensate households for the effects of inflation than the current discount. Importantly, it opens the door to future, broader reforms to stop the taxation of inflation.
Retail investors face an increasingly complex product environment, but simplicity may be the most overlooked advantage in building a portfolio you can actually live with.