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21 January 2025
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Building a portfolio is like building a house. This framework can help you move towards your goals without losing sight of reality or leaving yourself vulnerable to market storms.
In this exclusive interview, Graham Turner talks about how Flight Centre went global, what he's learned from key mistakes, the way he uses psychology to build the right teams, and his criteria for making acquisitions.
Much has been written about Graham Turner’s career and how he grew Flight Centre from a single shop in 1982 to a global company. In an exclusive interview, he shares the obstacles he's overcome to get to where he is today.
Of all the questions facing an investor, when to sell is perhaps the hardest. Unlike with the decision to make an investment, selling it requires you to undo something you have invested intellectual, emotional and financial capital.
Key takeaways from this year include economic outlooks have limited usefulness in positioning portfolios, and there’s a difference between falling prices and cheap assets, and that difference matters a great deal.
India has overtaken China as the world's most populous nation and under a reformist Prime Minister, it's growing faster than most other emerging markets. It's also got well-run companies, some of which are global leaders.
Although investors should not aim only to minimise costs, fees eat into compounded returns over the long term. Markets are competitive and it is possible to invest a diversified portfolio for negligible cost.
Super reviews aggregate retirees into an impersonal number on a chart, but the 2,700 Australians who retire each week are undergoing a major change in their lives. Why and when do they retire and then what?
Australians don't need dodgy schemes in Caribbean islands to hide their wealth. There are plenty of legal ways to avoid paying tax but they will leave personal income tax carrying a heavy burden for future generations.
We asked about 30 fund managers to consider their entire investment process and drill down into what drives the most success, asking: “What part of your investment process has contributed most to identifying winners?”
The software bubble appears to have popped but not everyone is convinced. There are many lessons from the US shale boom that are broadly applicable to the recent software boom, and it doesn't bode well for tech companies.
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.