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22 January 2025
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Making mistakes can be painful, especially in investing. We explore the worlds of chess, music, medicine, and golf to find out four of the best ways to learn from our mistakes and become better investors.
My wife and I are back in Europe, 40 years after our first backpacking trip through the continent. Though we've returned many times in between, we reflect on what's changed about European travel, the good and bad.
Australian companies worth billions of dollars are slipping into private hands at an alarming rate. This explores what’s driving the takeover binge, why it’s a worry, and what needs to be done to fix the problem.
It's important to look beyond the short-term volatility caused by military events, inflation, rate hikes, and other daily dramas. Here's how simple, diversified, long term portfolios continue to deliver healthy returns.
Regulators have accused superannuation funds of largely ignoring a new obligation to help members prepare for comfortable retirement. There are reasons for the slow progress, though clearly more can be done.
It's a puzzle that many people want both more homeownership and more landlords and rental housing. Increasing the ratio of homeownership to rental out of the stock of homes means landlords selling on balance.
While private investments remain a potential source for differentiated equitylike return streams, their structure merits caution for retail investors. These investments can easily turn south without access to high quality teams.
At times, income from investment funds may include a component of ‘tax-deferred distributions’. Due to their complexity, these distributions aren't widely understood, so here's an overview of how they actually work.
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.