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22 January 2025
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How bond rates affect share prices, China's property market, rationalising sequence risk, treading carefully with IPOs, advantages of convertible bonds, investing in public ancillary funds before 30 June.
The fear of sequence risk drives investors to take equity and risky asset exposures out of their retirement portfolios, but is this such a good idea? Looking back over the last 40 years provides some perspective.
It is widely believed that rising bond yields should be bad for share prices. But is this true in real life? The relationship between government bond yields and the price of shares is more complex than it first seems.
A credit-fuelled property bubble enabled China to maintain its incredible run of growth through the GFC. But now it has to deal with the implications of a massive excess supply of property, as millions of homes lie vacant.
Investors face a barrage of glowing research from investment banks trumpeting the blue sky potential of new companies seeking to be listed on the ASX. It’s crucial to ignore the spin and focus on the business itself.
Convertible bonds are an asset class that benefits from a range of characteristics that can be of value to investors. Over the long-term, they can deliver equity-like returns with significantly less volatility than equities.
Although the end of the financial year is near, there is still time to establish a tax deduction in a sub-fund within a public ancillary fund – a simple philanthropic structure that allows a planned approach to charitable giving.
Bill Gates interview: how the world will change over the next 15 years.
Last year, I wrote an article suggesting returns from ASX stocks would trample those from housing over the next decade. One year later, this is an update on how that forecast is going and what's changed since.
The housing market was subdued in 2024, and pessimism abounds as we start the new year. 2025 is likely to be a tale of two halves, with interest rate cuts fuelling a resurgence in buyer demand in the second half of the year.
This examines the performance of key asset classes and sub-sectors in 2024 and over longer timeframes, and the lessons that can be drawn for constructing an investment portfolio for the next decade.
The renowned investor has penned his first investor letter for 2025 and it’s a ripper. He runs through what bubbles are, which ones he’s experienced, and whether today’s markets qualify as the third major bubble of this century.
Key lessons include expensive stocks can always get more expensive, Bitcoin is our tulip mania, follow the smart money, the young are coming with pitchforks on housing, and the importance of staying invested.
Check out the most-read Firstlinks articles from 2024. From '16 ASX stocks to buy and hold forever', to 'The best strategy to build income for life', and 'Where baby boomer wealth will end up', there's something for all.