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17 September 2026
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When looking at long-term equity index charts, it’s easy to forget the individual stocks underpinning the indices don’t move as a unified block. This has important implications for how you try to extract returns from markets.
The SPIVA Scorecard suggests that most Australian actively-managed funds underperform comparable market indexes, but this analysis can be challenged by a number of key assumptions.
S&P's SPIVA (index versus active) data now spans 15 years of data on the performance of Australian managed funds. This study illuminates returns from sectors and styles, and investment lessons learned from it.
If you think you can identify the few managers who can outperform the index over time, either by research or based on advice, go for it. But the odds are stacked against you.
Fear of running out has become a defining retirement anxiety. Why do some retirees die with substantial wealth while others deplete their nest egg? Evidence suggests the answer is more complicated than we think.
Conventional wisdom encourages retirees to preserve superannuation. But if those likely to qualify for the Age Pension later in life spend a little more today, it may deliver higher lifetime income and a more stable retirement.
Tax rules have changed, but many investors are still using yesterday’s strategies. Insurance bonds may offer advantages for those seeking greater control, tax efficiency and certainty about their wealth.
Treasury’s latest CGT reform draft delivers a win for testamentary trusts and deceased estates, exempting estate-derived gains from the 30% floor. However, questions on death and divorce rollovers remain unresolved.
Reversionary pensions have long been a staple of SMSF estate planning, but are they still the best option? Meg Heffron revisits a once-clear favourite and asks whether changing super rules have shifted the balance.
What begins as appetite, grows into excess and ultimately ends in spectacle. Millions of investors just discovered this the hard way.