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21 January 2025
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With the RBA having lifted interest rates by 4.25% over 18 months, many investors now see cash as an attractive investment option. That ignores the silent tax of inflation, which makes other assets better investment alternatives.
The ASX All Ordinaries index is around the same price that it was in 2007, so is it time to give up on the local share market and look elsewhere? Here's why you shouldn't listen to the pessimists and stay invested.
Given the current environment it’s easy to wonder if there are any safe ports in the investment storm. Investments in infrastructure assets show their worth in such times.
During this heightened uncertainty, Value stocks have performed relatively well, coinciding with higher inflation. Expensive Growth stocks, hit by slowing growth and materials shortages, have sold off. Where to now?
The war in Ukraine is a humanitarian crisis, but what normally happens in share markets when conflicts hit and what is the impact of who wins and loses? Here are likely outcomes but the role of China remains uncertain.
The composition of the S&P/ASX 200 resembles that of a developing nation rather than our larger Western peers. How do we continue to grow our economy while evolving to remain competitive on the global stage?
Are markets on a road to recovery or a path of potholes? Leading portfolio managers were asked for the theme that most excites or worries them in the year ahead, and what they will especially watch for.
Among the myriad of numbers that bombard us every day, three prices matter greatly to the world economy. Recent changes in these prices help to understand the potential for a global recovery and interest rates.
Investment returns have defied initial expectations set in the early stages of the Covid pandemic, but where to from here? Which asset classes offer the best opportunities?
We tend to forget that house prices often fall. Direct lending controls are more effective than rate rises because macroprudential limits affect the volume of money for housing leaving business rates untouched.
Recent history has been spectacularly good for most asset classes but there is a the colossal gap between fundamentally-based forecasts of stockmarket returns over the next 5-10 years and investor expectations.
The long current positive run for the Australian stock market is unusual but not a warning of imminent demise. Previous long positive runs were not all followed by corrections but this one may end this month.
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.