Register to receive our free weekly newsletter including editorials.
21 January 2025
Recently trending
Ian Silk, CEO, AustralianSuper: "It has become part of my required reading: quality thinking, and (mercifully) to the point."
Rob Henshaw: "When I open my computer each day it's the first link I click - a really great read."
Reader: "Great resource. Cuffelinks is STILL the one and only weekly newsletter I regularly read."
Reader: "Is one of very few places an investor can go and not have product rammed down their throat. Love your work!"
Scott Pape, author of The Barefoot Investor: "I'm an avid reader of Cuffelinks. Thanks for the wonderful resource you have here, it really is first class."
Reader: "It's excellent so please don't pollute the content with boring mainstream financial 'waffle' and adverts for stuff we don't want!"
Reader: "Carry on as you are - well done. The average investor/SMSF trustee needs all the help they can get."
Australian Investors Association: "Australia's foremost independent financial newsletter for professionals and self-directed investors."
Steve: "The best that comes into our world each week. This is the only one that is never, ever canned before fully being reviewed by yours truly."
Reader: " Finding a truly independent and interesting read has been magical for me. Please keep it up and don't change!"
Reader: "An island of professionalism in an ocean of shallow self-interest. Well done!"
Reader: "The BEST in the game because of diversity and not aligned to financial products. Stands above all the noise."
Ian Kelly, CFP, BTACS Financial Services: "Probably the best source of commentary and information I have seen over the past 20 years."
Eleanor Dartnall, AFA Adviser of the Year, 2014: "Our clients love your newsletter. Your articles are avidly read by advisers and they learn a great deal."
Reader: "Best innovation I have seen whilst an investor for 25 years. The writers are brilliant. A great publication which I look forward to."
Andrew Buchan, Partner, HLB Mann Judd: "I have told you a thousand times it's the best newsletter."
John Egan, Egan Associates: "My heartiest congratulations. Your panel of contributors is very impressive and keep your readers fully informed."
Reader: "I subscribe to two newsletters. This is my first read of the week. Thank you. Excellent and please keep up the good work!"
Reader: "Keep it up - the independence is refreshing and is demonstrated by the variety of well credentialed commentators."
Jonathan Hoyle, CEO, Stanford Brown: "A fabulous publication. The only must-read weekly publication for the Australian wealth management industry."
Reader: "Love it, just keep doing what you are doing. It is the right length too, any longer and it might become a bit overwhelming."
Don Stammer, leading Australian economist: "Congratulations to all associated. It deserves the good following it has."
Noel Whittaker, author and financial adviser: "A fabulous weekly newsletter that is packed full of independent financial advice."
Reader: "I can quickly sort the items that I am interested in, then research them more fully. It is also a regular reminder that I need to do this."
John Pearce, Chief Investment Officer, Unisuper: "Out of the (many many) investmentrelated emails I get, Cuffelinks is one that I always open."
David Goldschmidt, Chartered Accountant: "I find this a really excellent newsletter. The best I get. Keep up the good work!"
Professor Robert Deutsch: "This has got to be the best set of articles on economic and financial matters. Always something worthwhile reading in Firstlinks. Thankyou"
Reader: "Congratulations on a great focussed news source. Australia has a dearth of good quality unbiased financial and wealth management news."
Australia is in the early throes of an intergenerational wealth transfer worth an estimated $3.5 trillion. Here's a case study highlighting some of the challenges with transferring wealth between generations.
In less than five years, all Baby Boomers will be eligible for retirement and the Baby Boomer bubble will have all but deflated. What happens next, and what are the implications for the wealth management industry?
The financial advice sector is experiencing a form of market failure where demand for the type of advice now favoured by the industry is limited by the cost of supplying it. Here's how the industry can best move forward.
By focusing on an individual rather than a group, professional investors get closer to the people they are trying to serve. Too many client meetings focus on the markets and not enough on meeting client goals.
We are publishing this anonymously knowing it comes from an impeccable source. Bernie Madoff’s fund was almost distributed to retail Australian investors a year before the largest-ever hedge fund fraud was exposed.
There's a popular view that generations are 'at war', but is it really the case that generations are more divided than ever before? If so, what's causing it? Why now? And how can we move forward?
Women comprise less than one-fifth of all active online investors in Australia and while the gap is closing, the financial services sector has more work ahead to empower women from all walks of life.
Wealth management businesses can be profitable and part of a vertically-integrated financial services offer by banks. They could present their best products as being in the best interests of their clients.
A major publisher has discontinued a high-profile fund manager award due to short termism and the conflict of fund managers contributing to the revenues of the agencies doing the ratings.
In a response to Graham Hand's article on why roboadvice is struggling, the case is made that conventional financial advice will increasingly confine itself to the wealthy, and the mass market needs another solution.
There's a fundamental difference between banking and wealth management: bankers have no fiduciary obligation to their clients. It's difficult for bankers to own fund managers and financial advice and fully accept the difference.
The Royal Commission will change financial advice, focussing more directly on conflicts of interest and client best interests. What can you flush out of your adviser immediately?
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.