Register to receive our free weekly newsletter including editorials.
25 January 2025
Recently trending
Reader: "Great resource. Cuffelinks is STILL the one and only weekly newsletter I regularly read."
Australian Investors Association: "Australia's foremost independent financial newsletter for professionals and self-directed investors."
Reader: "I subscribe to two newsletters. This is my first read of the week. Thank you. Excellent and please keep up the good work!"
Andrew Buchan, Partner, HLB Mann Judd: "I have told you a thousand times it's the best newsletter."
Rob Henshaw: "When I open my computer each day it's the first link I click - a really great read."
Eleanor Dartnall, AFA Adviser of the Year, 2014: "Our clients love your newsletter. Your articles are avidly read by advisers and they learn a great deal."
Reader: "Love it, just keep doing what you are doing. It is the right length too, any longer and it might become a bit overwhelming."
Ian Kelly, CFP, BTACS Financial Services: "Probably the best source of commentary and information I have seen over the past 20 years."
Reader: "It's excellent so please don't pollute the content with boring mainstream financial 'waffle' and adverts for stuff we don't want!"
Reader: "Is one of very few places an investor can go and not have product rammed down their throat. Love your work!"
Reader: " Finding a truly independent and interesting read has been magical for me. Please keep it up and don't change!"
Reader: "I can quickly sort the items that I am interested in, then research them more fully. It is also a regular reminder that I need to do this."
Reader: "The BEST in the game because of diversity and not aligned to financial products. Stands above all the noise."
Steve: "The best that comes into our world each week. This is the only one that is never, ever canned before fully being reviewed by yours truly."
Jonathan Hoyle, CEO, Stanford Brown: "A fabulous publication. The only must-read weekly publication for the Australian wealth management industry."
Professor Robert Deutsch: "This has got to be the best set of articles on economic and financial matters. Always something worthwhile reading in Firstlinks. Thankyou"
Reader: "Carry on as you are - well done. The average investor/SMSF trustee needs all the help they can get."
David Goldschmidt, Chartered Accountant: "I find this a really excellent newsletter. The best I get. Keep up the good work!"
Reader: "Keep it up - the independence is refreshing and is demonstrated by the variety of well credentialed commentators."
Ian Silk, CEO, AustralianSuper: "It has become part of my required reading: quality thinking, and (mercifully) to the point."
Don Stammer, leading Australian economist: "Congratulations to all associated. It deserves the good following it has."
Scott Pape, author of The Barefoot Investor: "I'm an avid reader of Cuffelinks. Thanks for the wonderful resource you have here, it really is first class."
Reader: "Best innovation I have seen whilst an investor for 25 years. The writers are brilliant. A great publication which I look forward to."
John Pearce, Chief Investment Officer, Unisuper: "Out of the (many many) investmentrelated emails I get, Cuffelinks is one that I always open."
Reader: "An island of professionalism in an ocean of shallow self-interest. Well done!"
Reader: "Congratulations on a great focussed news source. Australia has a dearth of good quality unbiased financial and wealth management news."
Noel Whittaker, author and financial adviser: "A fabulous weekly newsletter that is packed full of independent financial advice."
John Egan, Egan Associates: "My heartiest congratulations. Your panel of contributors is very impressive and keep your readers fully informed."
Chris Cuffe on company engagement; write-offs, tangibles and intangibles; ATO surveillance of SMSFs; wagering and financial services; and characteristics of skilled managers.
SMSFs are being targeted by property marketers, but is a single, illiquid investment a good super strategy, with its associated leverage? ASIC is worried SMSF trustees are not seeing the full picture, so we went looking.
Don’t judge the extent to which institutional investors influence listed companies by the big public event, the AGM. Private meetings with executives of listed companies are ongoing and lively.
If high levels of intangibles are not written down by the auditors – even after years of generating mediocre returns – the market will often do the writing down for them. Either way, shareholders receive lousy returns.
The ATO will step up surveillance of SMSFs in 2013/14, and trustees need to ensure their fund is compliant. There are rules around the acquisition of assets, especially related party transactions.
There are insightful parallels between the bookmaking industry and the financial services sector, and it would help if market analysts and fund researchers assigned odds to their predictions.
The key to good investing is knowing when the odds are in your favour, and equally important, knowing how to apply that edge. With experience, it should give the confidence to run more concentrated portfolios.
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.
2024 was a banner year for equities, with a run-up in US tech stocks broadening into a global market rally, and the big question now is whether the good times can continue? History suggests optimism is warranted.
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.