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22 January 2025
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To fly capital city routes such as Sydney-Melbourne, an airline needs landing slots at Sydney Airport. An extraordinary government policy prevented Rex Airlines from getting these slots and set them up to fail.
There are 75 brands owned by LVMH which operate as largely independent businesses, keeping them agile and entrepreneurial. The company’s response to the Covid pandemic was a great validation of this strength.
Australia prides itself on being an open, trading nation, but we rank a poor 106th in the world on trade system productivity. We have not digitalised, failing to set up a competitive recovery from COVID.
Many new 'disruptive' businesses are simply older-style businesses dressed up, and even if it's an attractive and ultimately profitable new space, competitors will join the party.
In Part 2 of this two-part series, Hamish discusses how the most dominant businesses of the last 50 years might struggle, faced with new threats, and even Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are worried.
Facebook, Tripadvisor and Alibaba - they’re great businesses because they require no inventory, have low capital costs, relatively few staff and their own customers generate the content.
Valuations of technology companies are driven by both external and internal factors, but it's still more art than science. There's no magic formula amid the guesswork but there are some basic principles to follow.
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.
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.
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.