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15 September 2025
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We are trading through one of history's most confounding market environments. One day, financial headlines warn of doomsday scenarios. The next, they celebrate a new golden age. How can investors keep a clear head?
Every successful fund manager suffers periods of underperformance, and investors who jump from fund to fund chasing results are likely to do badly. Selecting a manager is a long-term decision but what else?
Fund performance varies over time. A fund may have strong capability and perform well over time, but it may fail the performance test at some point. The YFYS reforms create unwelcome and unintended consequences.
The Government's performance test in the 'Your Future, Your Super' proposals is likely to prove ineffective and generate undesirable outcomes. It will distort how funds are managed and confuse members.
With the Retirement Income Review now in Treasury's hands, will the 'fact base' establish whether large super funds do better than the share index? The public evidence is not impressive.
A surprisingly small number of stocks usually drive index performance, and active managers who miss these few companies can struggle to perform and justify their active fees.
Investing with previous-year top performing fund managers and acting along with the crowd puts you on the wrong side of a zero-sum game. There may be a 'fear' premium for investing in out-of-favour styles.
As we approach the end of the financial year, don't put off selling the chronic under-performers that are weighing you and your investment portfolio down. Especially if you need an offset to some taxable capital gains.
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.
Australia could unlock smarter investment and greater equity by reforming housing tax concessions. Rethinking exemptions on the family home could benefit most Australians, especially renters and owners of modest homes.
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.
The creator of the 4% rule for retirement withdrawals, Bill Bengen, has written a new book outlining fresh strategies to outlive your money, including holding fewer stocks in early retirement before increasing allocations.
This AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. Just like fibre in 2000, shale in 2014, and cannabis in 2019, the technology or product is real but the capital cycle will be brutal. Investors beware.