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21 January 2025
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Just because a stock is cheap doesn't necessarily make it good value. This uses case studies in the tech sector to help identify when stocks trading on 30x earnings may be inexpensive and when others on 10x may be value traps.
Many assets have enjoyed a positive year, leaving some of them looking pricey. Here we compare valuations of cash, bonds, stocks, and property, and suggest where investors may be able to find opportunities.
For decades, cyclically adjusted P/E ratios have been a common and widely accepted gauge of market valuation. But as the financial landscape continues to evolve, so too must our tools for understanding it.
Investments in intangible assets are as crucial to many companies as investments in capital equipment. The different accounting treatment of these investments, however, weighs on reported earnings and could render ratios like P/E less useful for investors.
ASX market bulls point to corporate balance sheets and earnings, while bears highlight company valuations and persistently higher inflation. It's best to ignore short-term noise and focus on investing in quality companies.
For one Commonwealth Bank worth ~$200 billion, you can buy three of Europe's leading banks with much larger addressable markets. This is just one example of the extreme valuation divergences across global stock markets.
ASX blue-chip ResMed has been hammered due to concerns that new obesity drugs will reduce demand for its product. What are these drugs, how effective are they and what impact could they have on the sleep apnoea market?
Human beings are storytelling animals yet it’s the job of investors to separate truth from fiction. And the truth lies in numbers, the company earnings and the multiples attached to those earnings.
Stock prices are like email: distraction machines. With email, it distracts people from getting work done efficiently, while with stock prices, they distract investors from what really matters: the businesses underlying them.
Investment in the energy sector has dropped significantly but demand continues to rise. Higher prices normally trigger more spending and increased supply. If this is not the case, it creates investment opportunities.
A check on price chart action for dozens of favourite tech stocks shows how dramatic the rises and falls have been. Where to from here? There's better value but profits need to remain strong or prices will fall.
It is a tough time to be investing in growth stocks but there may be ways investors can take advantage of lower prices and be well positioned when the market and interest rates return to normality.
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.