Register to receive our free weekly newsletter including editorials.
Sunday, 24 October 2021
Recently trending
Eleanor Dartnall, AFA Adviser of the Year, 2014: "Our clients love your newsletter. Your articles are avidly read by advisers and they learn a great deal."
Professor Robert Deutsch: "This has got to be the best set of articles on economic and financial matters. Always something worthwhile reading in Firstlinks. Thankyou"
Reader: "Carry on as you are - well done. The average investor/SMSF trustee needs all the help they can get."
Reader: "It's excellent so please don't pollute the content with boring mainstream financial 'waffle' and adverts for stuff we don't want!"
Reader: "Is one of very few places an investor can go and not have product rammed down their throat. Love your work!"
Reader: "I can quickly sort the items that I am interested in, then research them more fully. It is also a regular reminder that I need to do this."
John Egan, Egan Associates: "My heartiest congratulations. Your panel of contributors is very impressive and keep your readers fully informed."
Reader: "Best innovation I have seen whilst an investor for 25 years. The writers are brilliant. A great publication which I look forward to."
Reader: " Finding a truly independent and interesting read has been magical for me. Please keep it up and don't change!"
Reader: "Love it, just keep doing what you are doing. It is the right length too, any longer and it might become a bit overwhelming."
Reader: "Congratulations on a great focussed news source. Australia has a dearth of good quality unbiased financial and wealth management news."
Reader: "The BEST in the game because of diversity and not aligned to financial products. Stands above all the noise."
Reader: "I subscribe to two newsletters. This is my first read of the week. Thank you. Excellent and please keep up the good work!"
Ian Kelly, CFP, BTACS Financial Services: "Probably the best source of commentary and information I have seen over the past 20 years."
Noel Whittaker, author and financial adviser: "A fabulous weekly newsletter that is packed full of independent financial advice."
Reader: "Keep it up - the independence is refreshing and is demonstrated by the variety of well credentialed commentators."
Scott Pape, author of The Barefoot Investor: "I'm an avid reader of Cuffelinks. Thanks for the wonderful resource you have here, it really is first class."
Jonathan Hoyle, CEO, Stanford Brown: "A fabulous publication. The only must-read weekly publication for the Australian wealth management industry."
Reader: "Great resource. Cuffelinks is STILL the one and only weekly newsletter I regularly read."
Rob Henshaw: "When I open my computer each day it's the first link I click - a really great read."
Don Stammer, leading Australian economist: "Congratulations to all associated. It deserves the good following it has."
Vishal Teckchandani, Content Editor, nabtrade: "Exceptional investment literature of the highest possible quality."
Andrew Buchan, Partner, HLB Mann Judd: "I have told you a thousand times it's the best newsletter."
John Pearce, Chief Investment Officer, Unisuper: "Out of the (many many) investmentrelated emails I get, Cuffelinks is one that I always open."
Ian Silk, CEO, AustralianSuper: "It has become part of my required reading: quality thinking, and (mercifully) to the point."
Australian Investors Association: "Australia's foremost independent financial newsletter for professionals and self-directed investors."
David Goldschmidt, Chartered Accountant: "I find this a really excellent newsletter. The best I get. Keep up the good work!"
Reader: "An island of professionalism in an ocean of shallow self-interest. Well done!"
Steve: "The best that comes into our world each week. This is the only one that is never, ever canned before fully being reviewed by yours truly."
It's a remarkable statistic. In any year since 1875, if you had invested in the Australian stock index, turned away and come back eight years later, your average return would be 120% with no negative periods.
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.
A long-time advocate of the merits of generating income by investing in industrial companies rather than bonds or deposits checks his 'mothership' chart for the latest results, and continues to feel vindicated.
Despite the rhetoric from some investors, backing smaller, riskier stocks in the Australian share market will not necessarily give better returns than larger, less volatile stocks.
APRA's heatmap has profound implications as it shows which super funds are underperforming in a period. But when good markets are compared with poor markets, one in five of funds changes its assessment.
Many investors react poorly to market falls, although they should be accepted as frequent and part of investing. It’s best to know how you respond to your behavioural biases, and prepare for them in advance.
For long-term investors who can tolerate short-term volatility, shares will deliver the best outcome including income in retirement. It's cash and term deposits that are the long-term risks.
The longer the holding period, the lesser the variation of actual returns from expected ones. Using this principle should allow construction of actively-managed portfolios that outperform passive portfolios.
At its core, successful investing is simple, but we have a knack of making it look complex. Here are five basic lessons that demonstrate key aspects of investing.
Fund managers are taking more risk in their search for performance, but is it the mad rush of 20/20 at the expense of the steadier and ultimately more rewarding and enduring experience of test cricket?
We may prefer a fast pay off but a long-term approach to investing will result in a less stressful journey and a more successful outcome.
Investors in share markets should benefit from letting patience and time do the work for their overall returns. The longer the time periods for rolling returns, the less volatile the market appears.
The RBA Governor says rising house prices are due to "the design of our taxation and social security systems". The OECD says "the prolonged boom in house prices has inflated the wealth of many pensioners without impacting their pension eligibility." What's your view?
We tend to forget that house prices often fall. Direct lending controls are more effective than rate rises because macroprudential limits affect the volume of money for housing leaving business rates untouched.
The survey drew a fantastic 2,000 responses with over 1,000 comments and polar opposite views on what is good policy. Do most people believe the home should be in the age pension asset test, and what do they say?
Any policy decision needs to recognise who is affected by a change. It pays to check the data on who pays taxes, who owns assets and who earns the income to ensure an equitable and efficient outcome.
With articles on the pensions assets test read about 40,000 times, 3,500 survey responses and thousands of comments, there was a lot of great reader participation. A few comments added extra insights.
It is hard to think of any area of widespread public concern where the same policies have been pursued for so long, in the face of such incontrovertible evidence that they have failed to achieve their objectives.