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17 September 2025
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Consumer spending directly impacts corporate earnings, sector performance and market sentiment. The latest data from different economies uncover risks and pockets of opportunity for investors.
After a stellar 2025 to date for equities, warning signs - from speculative froth to stretched valuations - suggest the market’s calm may be masking deeper fragilities. Strategic rebalancing feels increasingly timely.
Major equity indices will need to defy history if they are to deliver anything like the returns of recent years. In a rapidly changing environment, investors may need to look further afield for the next winners.
Getting regular, growing income from stocks is tougher with the dividend yield on the ASX nearing 25-year lows. Here are some conventional and not-so-conventional ideas for investors wanting to build a dividend portfolio.
There's been a surge of interest in overseas equities as the Australian market lags. This explores various approaches to determine the best allocation of international equities within a long-term investment portfolio.
2023 saw global dividends rise to a record US$1.66 trillion, up by 5% on an underlying basis. The year also ended on a positive note, though Australian dividends lagged other countries, largely thanks to the miners.
For one Commonwealth Bank worth ~$200 billion, you can buy three of Europe's leading banks with much larger addressable markets. This is just one example of the extreme valuation divergences across global stock markets.
Many investors sell because they think the stockmarket will fall, with the intention of reinvesting. It requires two correct timing decisions but what signals will prompt a reinvestment? It's harder than it looks.
Global asset owners have historically allocated capital to two distinct equity asset classes: global large cap and/or global small cap. There's a good argument for a small-midcap fund to be part of investor portfolios.
Australian small caps have consistently failed to achieve excess returns due to structural problems. Global small-caps don't have the the same issues and have been an effective way to outperform over the long term.
Small and mid cap stocks potentially offer investors an opportunity not seen in decades as valuations are close to two standard deviations 'cheap' relative to larger companies. It's not the only thing in their favour.
Like in the 1970s, today's investors face challenges of inflation, cold war, and fraying global trade ties - but unlike then, there's now high debt and environmental problems. Here's how to best navigate the difficult backdrop.
Each generation believes its economic challenges were uniquely tough - but what does the data say? A closer look reveals a more nuanced, complex story behind the generational hardship debate.
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.
This goes through the different options including shares, property and business ownership and declares a winner, as well as outlining the mindset needed to earn enough to never have to work again.
Everyone has a theory as to why housing in Australia is so expensive. There are a lot of different factors at play, from skewed migration patterns to banking trends and housing's status as a national obsession.
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.