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22 January 2025
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Social media, app and trading platforms that drive retail participation also open doors for greater volatility. Ironically, easy money is contributing to market risks, with shorting hit by spiking to the upside.
Members of the Reddit army who believed they were inside the tent sharing views with fellow rebels cannot know who is on the other side of their trades - or even who they are talking to in their group.
John Pearce's Unisuper funds were among the top performers over most time periods to end 2019. He reveals he has suspended stock lending due to coronavirus and issued a video update to his members.
A fund manager that can short sell stocks with weak investment characteristics while reinvesting the proceeds in long positions in preferred stocks has a high degree of flexibility.
The rapid price fall of Blue Sky following a poor report from a foreign seller makes it look as if short selling is easy, but there are many risks and details to consider along the way.
Shorting has implications not only for those looking to sell to profit from price falls. It can create both opportunities and challenges and all investors should watch the short volume.
Although the amount of shorting on the ASX has fallen, there are many opportunities among the different types of shorts to enhance performance while managing the risks.
Disruption across many industries often makes it easier to pick the losers than the winners. Short-selling can play an important and legitimate role in an investment portfolio, although it continues to attract criticism.
In this update of the 'winners versus losers' investment hypothesis, momentum is the winner - again. It's only a 'paper' portfolio but it suggests consistent behavioural biases among investors.
Hedge funds have been short selling Australian banks for a while now, mainly due to perceptions about the property market. However, it is not house prices but unemployment that matters most for bank prosperity.
At a time when technology and society are forcing fundamental change on businesses, there is logic in adding 'shorting' to portfolio management. But it's not simply the opposite of going 'long'.
In 1993, researchers in the US studied the phenomenon of winning stocks continuing to outperform losing stocks. Using both long and short positions one could theoretically outperform the market on a regular basis.
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.