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6 October 2025
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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?
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.
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.
Australian housing’s 50-year boom was driven by falling rates and rising borrowing power — not rent or yield. With those drivers exhausted, future returns must reconcile with economic fundamentals. Are we ready?
Younger Australians think they’ll need $100k a year in retirement - nearly double what current retirees spend. Expectations are rising fast, but are they realistic or just another case of lifestyle inflation?
This week, I got the news that my mother has dementia. It came shortly after my father received the same diagnosis. This is a meditation on getting old and my regrets in not getting my parents’ affairs in order sooner.