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22 December 2024
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SMSFs avoid franking loss, 3 key bank risks, super changes, investing like sport, Asia drives real assets, BBB bond worries, ETF thematic investing.
If Labor legislates to withdraw franking credit refunds, retirees have an alternative for their pension superannuation to retain the refund. It shows the proposal does not have 'horizontal equity' between structures.
Australia's major banks face many challenges but they are strong and remarkably adaptive and resilient. They have also finally accepted they are too big to behave badly.
If you have been maintaining a small inactive superannuation fund purely for insurance purposes, you need to act quickly to avoid losing cover which might be difficult to replace.
Structuring an investment team around geography or sectors leads to manager bias in poor sectors. Better to focus on a few areas of fascination where product and business expertise can develop.
Real assets such as airports will benefit significantly from a massive growth in Asian tourism and a growing middle class, and are less subject to the vagaries of the business cycle.
Bond markets are far larger than stockmarkets, and the BBB segments in the largest of all in the corporate market. Many analysts have pointed to potential weaknesses but it pays to look a bit deeper.
Thematic trend investors relies more on recognising how the world is changing over the long term, and finding sectors that will benefit, rather than the more cyclical approach of picking short-term winners.
The 'direct investment options' may have structural advantages for franking credit refunds, but that does not mean SMSFs do not have their own specific advantages. What's best for the superannuant?
It’s with heavy hearts that we announce Firstlinks’ co-founder and former Managing Editor, Graham Hand, has died aged 66. Graham was a legendary figure in the finance industry and here are three tributes to him.
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.
Australia is in the early throes of an intergenerational wealth transfer worth an estimated $3.5 trillion. Here's a case study highlighting some of the challenges with transferring wealth between generations.
The Future Fund's original purpose was to meet the unfunded liabilities of Commonwealth defined benefit schemes. These liabilities have ballooned to an estimated $290 billion and taxpayers continue to be treated like fools.
ASFA provides a key guide for how much you will need to live on in retirement. Unfortunately it has many deficiencies, and the averages don't tell the full story of the growing gender superannuation gap.
The Big Four banks have had an extraordinary run and it’s left income investors with a conundrum: to stick with them even though they now offer relatively low dividend yields and limited growth prospects or to look elsewhere.