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22 December 2024
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A healthy couple entering retirement can expect at least one of them to live for 30 more years. What do the 30-year asset performance charts say about returns, ignoring the pessimism that the future will be worse?
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.
A key attribute of great investors is the ability to abstract away the specifics of a particular domain, leaving only the important underlying principles upon which great investments can be made.
In a sentence or two, global experts across many fields are asked to summarise the biggest surprise of 2021, and enduring challenges into 2022. It's a short and sweet view of the changes we are all facing.
'Sophisticated' investors can be offered securities without the usual disclosure requirements given to everyday investors, but far more people now qualify than was ever intended. Many are far from sophisticated.
We expect portfolio managers to invest in their own funds and executives to own shares in their companies so they have 'skin in the game'. Should government leaders have more investing and business experience?
Immersed in the business and finance worlds at an early age, Hetty Green became one of the most successful investors of all time. Her story shows that the best advice is often timeless.
The ability to buy and sell cheaply and quickly in small parcels is both the biggest drawback and benefit of shares. But it encourages people who should not go near the market to use it as a casino.
Anyone can do their own personal investing, but what makes the skill required different from other professions? It's not easy even for the experts to consistently beat the market.
Many of Australia's bank directors lack crucial skills in technology, operations and HR as part of a broader shortage of experience that is as important in dodging scandals as in business success.
Financial adviser education, training and legislating ethical standards will help improve 'best interests' practices, but what about adviser experience? This important quality is near impossible to regulate.
Notwithstanding the wide variety of fund managers and fund structures vying for the investor dollar, some questions need to be asked of all of them. They help us determine the quality of the fund and the manager.
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.