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27 March 2026
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On every valuation metric, the US appears significantly more expensive than Australia. However, American companies are also much more profitable than ours, which means the ASX may be more overvalued than most think.
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 more rational taxation system that supports home ownership but discourages asset speculation could provide greater financial support to first home buyers.
One in five Australians die before retirement and most have not set up their super properly so their loved ones can benefit from all their hard work and savings.
An ageing Australia is shifting the superannuation system’s focus from accumulation to the lifecycle of retirement. While these pressures have been anticipated for decades, they are now converging at scale and driving widespread industry change.
The 20 years after Peter Costello left Treasury have been deemed wasted...by Peter Costello. The missed opportunities for Australia began long before.
The best way to deal with the incoming Division 296 tax on superannuation is likely doing nothing. Earnings will be taxed regardless of where the money sits, so here are some important considerations.
An ‘affordability’ scheme making the county more vulnerable to economic shocks and contributing to the deteriorating financial situation of everyday Australians.