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22 December 2024
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Taking the path less travelled led to a remarkable return from this small-cap. Here is the inside track on how our investment unfolded, and why we don't think the story has finished yet.
The discounts on listed investment vehicles are at historically wide levels. There are lots of reasons given, including size and liquidity, yet there's a better explanation for the discounts, and why a rebound may be near.
So-called ‘resulting’ is what poker players call the tendency to judge a decision based on its outcome rather than its quality. It's something that happens a lot in investing, though should be avoided at all costs.
What is the catalyst for smalls caps to start outperforming their larger counterparts? Cheap relative valuation is bullish though it isn't a catalyst, so what else could drive a long-awaited turnaround?
Typically, higher interest rates are associated with lower share market valuations, but not always and the relationship hasn’t been that strong over the long term. Company fundamentals will matter more over the next few years.
Ophir Asset Management's Andrew Mitchell on lessons learned from managing money over the past decade, Graham on the next targets to redistribute wealth, and Peter with the reporting season's highs and lows.
Now is a good time to look at what investors should expect if a recession does arrive in the US soon. Here are seven recession 'truths', including who will be to blame for a recession and the prospects of timing the bottom.
Owning bonds is less risky than owning shares, right? The evidence suggests that while this may be true in the short term, it isn't over longer time horizons, with important implications for asset allocation.
There's a common belief that the outperformance of 'growth investing' over 'value investing' since the GFC is simply due to the fall in longer-term interest rates, but is this really the case? The answer may surprise you.
Even if you possess godlike skills, you can’t avoid big drawdowns. The lesson for investors is they need to back the long-term track record of their fund manager through the volatility to outperform in their portfolios.
Smaller listed companies tend to fall first and furthest when an economic downturn hits but they recover the strongest. Here are three reasons why small caps may see strong returns after the recovery takes hold.
In the 12 US recessions since WWII, the S&P500 index has contracted from peak to trough by a median of 24%. We were almost there in June 2022 but trying to time the bottom of the market can be a costly strategy.
Market volatility is back and might be staying. Should investors be worried or is this part and parcel of investing in shares? Here are seven truths of volatility that will help investors ride the market’s gyrations.
Omicron and central bank policy changes have spoiled Christmas, especially for the value of businesses with the most profit growth far in the future. Has the pullback in parts of the global market been overdone?
Understanding your own biases and behaviours is even more important than learning about markets. Overcome four major cognitive biases that may be sabotaging your investing and recognise them in others.
How do you separate skill from luck in the performance of a fund manager? Investing is a mix of art and science in a highly-competitive industry full of smart people. Here are tips on what to look for.
Small cap investors face less mature companies with zero profit that need significant capital for growth. Without years of financial data to rely on, investors must employ creative ways to value companies.
There are only three sources of returns when investing in companies. Whether an investment delivers on dividends, earnings or valuation expansion determines performance, and the contribution of each varies over time.
Even the best long-term performing fund managers have shorter-term periods of underperformance. It’s not a failure, it’s a feature of the industry. Investors need patience when backing a good track record.
Peter Thornhill shows how his personal portfolio has thrived under an 'all-in equities' strategy, but Warren Buffett's favourite valuation indicator says stock markets are priced at their most extreme ever.
At the top of every market, there are signs that investors look back on and say the excesses were obvious. While many parts of the market are fairly valued, here are four bubbles which show irrational exuberance.
Lower bond yields have been used to justify higher share market valuations for much of the last decade. Now bond rates are rising and there is an inflation threat, what determines whether equities will be hit?
Some fund managers take as much money as they can raise in the interests of generating fees, but especially in the smaller and mid cap space, limiting capacity gives flexibility and a competitive advantage.
New technologies and markets are driving opportunities for small to medium cap companies, as well as the global tech giants. Many Australian companies have jumped on the wave.
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.