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22 January 2025
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“Alone in the dark with our money”, your financial literacy, tech dominance, housing fears, tax perils, startup warnings, good to bad, lifestages.
The Royal Commission stoked the coals on financial advice fees and commissions, taking three days to learn trustees and management are severely conflicted by best interest responsibilities.
The 2018 HILDA Survey included five questions aimed at measuring financial literacy. We have replicated these in Cuffelinks' own quiz to compare our readership's results with that of the rest of Australia.
With Apple through to US$1 trillion, and Google, Amazon, Microsoft hot on its heels, could these megacaps be experiencing ‘runaway returns to scale’?
The tightening of credit conditions for home lending driven by the Royal Commission has not fully translated into aggregate statistics, and the slowdown may already be worse than we realise.
Investments that offer some element of tax effectiveness or tax breaks can be good, but it's unwise to make investment decisions, both buying or selling, based solely on beneficial tax treatment.
Investing in startups and untried ideas is risky but there are some ways to swing the odds in your favour, without becoming bogged down in running the business. It's mainly about the people.
Most fund managers had a strong year in FY2018, but past bumper years when MTAA invested heavily in so called 'low risk' illiquid assets provide a warning in less fortuitous markets.
After failing to secure a buyer, Toys 'R' Us Australia is set to close down all of its toy and baby goods stores. The company has struggled globally against intense online competition.
It is useful to think of your financial life and psychological adjustment in five stages: a family and career phase, pre-retirement, close to retirement, just past retirement, and then lifestyle downsizing.
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.
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.
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.
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.