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21 January 2025
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ASX reporting season focuses on how earnings compare to forecasts, yet there's little mention of how dividends perform versus expectations. A new scorecard aims to rectify this to help income-focused portfolios.
Despite recession predictions, consumer activity and corporate earnings are holding up well. Global long-term interest rates probably peaked last October, and there are signs of corporate earnings re-acceleration.
Companies have been slow to update guidance and we have yet to see the impact of inflation expectations in earnings and outlooks. Companies need to insulate costs from inflation while enjoying an uptick in revenue.
Retirees require a reliable income stream to replace the wages they received when they were working and should focus on the dollar income generated over time rather than the headline yield percentage.
A long-time advocate of the merits of generating income by investing in industrial companies rather than bonds or deposits checks his 'mothership' chart for the latest results, and continues to feel vindicated.
Many property trust results are better than expected, with the A-REIT sector on a dividend yield of 4.8%. But there's a wide variation by sector and the ability of tenants to pay the rent.
Profits results in August 2019 were overall poor, and other factors are in play that influence share prices. It is difficult to jump aboard a profit announcement and make money in the short term.
About half of companies reported as expected in their latest financial results, and the rest were split between favourable and disappointing. Valuations are not cheap but some companies deserve to be expensive.
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.