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8 July 2022
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Wealth accumulation has four main drivers. Evaluating long-term investment risk requires shifting the focus on shorter-term losses and volatility towards failure to achieve long-term objectives.
Savers are making small decision after small decision that leads them away from investing and closer to outright speculating. Time will tell if this ends in a bloody climax or we all live happily ever after.
Risk isn’t something to be avoided altogether. To achieve returns beyond the government bond rate, some level of risk must be accepted. Assessing which risks to take and calibrating them is the investor's challenge.
Investors often overlook the capital risk in high-yielding stocks. It's better to ensure capital grows and investors can sell a portion each year to make up for the shortfall in income from dividends.
Investing in a traditional index can be compared with taking the main road to a destination, but if you know the backroads and traffic conditions, you coud reach your goal quicker.
While franking credits attached to Australian equity dividends can be a meaningful source of extra returns, a deliberate tilt towards franking can also introduce significant unwanted risks into the portfolio.
To avoid retreating from making investment decisions during uncertainty, investors are compelled to rely on 'rules of thumb' to guide them in decision-making. Here are many of the more popular commonly-used rules.
The worldwide trend to populism loosens fiscal restraint, leading to asset price inflation and forcing investors to focus on a range of low probability but potentially material risks.
Many active managers are closet indexers. The real cost of forcing a skilled manager into a low tracking error is the limit to the upside.
It’s much easier to measure returns than the risk involved in generating those returns. Yet, it’s crucial to understand risk because in certain markets, higher returns may simply be coming from taking more risk.
ETFs have grown rapidly in popularity and diversity, but like managed funds, not all products will survive for the long term and there are consequences if a small-scale ETF is closed by its issuer.
What to do when you think a market correction is overdue? Instead of selling off everything, a viable option is to position yourself for an easier exit, although it's tougher to implement in equities than fixed interest.
With 62% of Australians aged 65 and over relying at least partially on the age pension, are they better off owning their home or renting? There is an extra pension asset allowance for those not owning a home.
With 700 Australians retiring every day, retirement income solutions are more important than ever. Why do millions of retirees eligible for a more tax-efficient pension account hold money in accumulation?
Equity investing comes with volatility that makes many retirees uncomfortable. A focus on income which is less volatile than share prices, and quality companies delivering robust earnings, offers more reassurance.
Few people have been closer to superannuation policy over the years than Noel Whittaker, especially when he established his eponymous financial planning business. He takes us on a quick guided tour.
A fund manager argues it is immoral to deny poor countries access to relatively cheap energy from fossil fuels. Wealthy countries must recognise the transition is a multi-decade challenge and continue to invest.
What was bothering markets in 2006? Try the end of cheap money, bond yields rising, high energy prices and record high commodity prices feeding inflation. Who says these are 'unprecedented' times? It's 2006 v 2022.