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16 August 2025
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Here's a detailed look at how current valuations and profit forecasts for the S&P 500 stack up versus history. The answer? Both seem excessive, making the market vulnerable to a correction or worse.
Companies have been slow to update guidance and we have yet to see the impact of inflation expectations in earnings and outlooks. Companies need to insulate costs from inflation while enjoying an uptick in revenue.
Weaker share prices may have already discounted some bad news, but cost inflation is creating wide divergences inside and across sectors. Early results show some companies are strong enough to resist sector falls.
Averages provide the central value in a data series but provide no window into variation. Every market drawdown, financial crisis and recession is different, and market cycles only end when excesses are corrected.
We are witnessing a shift away from new, “exciting, visionary, ground-breaking companies” to well-established, quality businesses, with resilient cash flows, that make good profits and have solid growth prospects.
It was a joy ride while it lasted but the free money era could not last. The consequences of the misallocation of capital into poor companies is now playing out and shareholders face billions of dollars in losses.
We tend to call any change a 'disruption', but the vast majority of so-called disruptive technologies are variations on a theme. Many innovations are really high-risk, low-probability investments.
Uber is the largest loss-making startup in history, and while investors will climb aboard the IPO and return money to early investors, the stockmarket will eventually realise there is no identifiable path to Uber profitability.
Exogenous factors like macro changes and weather can affect a company’s short-term profits. Management often blames uncontrollable factors for earnings downgrades but rarely owns up to a fortuitous tailwind.
Dividend streams tend to be stable and determined by fundamental factors. Unlike capital valuations, which are affected by estimates of prospective returns which are, in turn, strongly affected by market sentiment.
LICs can sustain their dividends not only from current year profits, but from reserves built up in prior years. This report looks at reserve levels as a sign of consistency of future dividends.
A 'Goldilocks economy' is one which runs neither too hot nor too cold. A combination of steady global growth, benign inflation and easy monetary conditions is carrying share markets to higher levels.
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.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers aims to tackle tax reform but faces challenges. Previous reviews struggled due to political sensitivities, highlighting the need for comprehensive and politically feasible change.
The Labor government is talking up tax reform to lift Australia’s ailing economic growth. Before any changes are made, it’s important to know who pays tax, who owns assets, and how much people have in their super for retirement.
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.
China's steel production, equivalent to building one Sydney Harbour Bridge every 10 minutes, has driven Australia's economic growth. With China's slowdown, what does this mean for Australia's economy and investments?