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21 January 2025
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Understanding the property cycle can be a useful tool to make informed decisions and stay focused on long-term goals. This looks at where we are in the commercial property cycle and the potential opportunities for investors.
US market concentration in large technology companies has captured investor attention. Here explores how this concentration compares to history and what typically follows periods of extreme concentration.
The negative stock/bond correlation from 1998 until 2019 was the anomaly, not the positive relationship that began in 2022. In the years ahead, portfolio diversification should come increasingly from security and manager selection.
Given the last decade delivered phenomenal stockmarket returns, investors should expect the next decade to prove more challenging. However, 'value' stocks are cheap, providing compelling opportunities for contrarian investors.
Common investor habits are selling when the market falls, worrying about others, a fear of running out of money and losing patience with a fund. Here are strategies and investments to manage these foibles.
With heightened uncertainty and the market near record highs, it's important to focus on companies that are largely insulated from unpredictable macroeconomic risks. CSL and Corporate Travel Management fit the bill.
Last year was rough for investors, especially where equity and bond portfolios were not as diversified as they thought. Spreading the risk sounds simple but watch that funds are not all doing the same thing.
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.
Decelerating inflation should provide a tailwind for high quality bonds but will likely hurt company margins and therefore stock prices. Uncompetitive companies facing elevated capital costs will be most at risk.
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.
Rather than futile attempts to pick the bottom of the market, it's better to focus on improved valuations in quality companies and wait for the recovery in their businesses. But there are also problems to avoid.
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.
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.