There are a few studies that show that the richer you are the better your investment returns – Thomas Piketty the French economist is probably the most well-known author in this space. A recent Vox article digs into these returns using detailed Swedish data and essentially finds the same thing. The top 5-10% of households
There is sometimes confusion about the returns available on property in a self-managed super fund (SMSF) – especially as the mathematics starts to get confusing with relative rates of return, real vs nominal and opportunity cost vs risk, before tax and after tax returns. But I have a much easier way to explain why it
Very. But not as much as it could get to: My own view is that the dollar has further to rise, perhaps into the 82-83 cents range. It’s being driven by USD weakness linked to falling oil and fading fiscal hopes, plus China holding up better than markets thought through its tightening, expressed most obviously
Nice video here of Westpac’s Justin Smirk on the outlook for China, iron ore and the Australian dollar: Absolutely right. Westpac’s AUD fair value is already stretched and getting stretcheder: The MB Fund offers you the perfect vehicle to maximise returns via a temporary rise in the Aussie dollar in its pure international equities portfolio of 50 hand-picked stocks:
The Australian dollar kept on keeping on last night against both USD and EUR: Against EMs it was mixed: Gold caught a bid: Brent too: Base metals fell: Big miners were mixed: EM stocks took off: As high yield rebounded: US bonds were sold: And European spreads all but disappeared as bunds were bashed: Stocks
I’ve had a number of discussions with investors over the last few weeks about investing in the Macrobusiness fund versus “do it yourself” investing and thought it worth aggregating the discussions into a post. Part of what I want to do with the MacroBusiness fund is to de-mystify portfolio investing. Many parts of investing are
Some of you will already know but let’s make it official. The MacroBusiness Fund is open for business. This is the culmination of a decade long dream for some at MB so congratulations all around. Let’s begin with a description of what the fund is offering and how. There are six funds operating through the
Via the AFR today comes some serious chutzpah: Australia’s sharemarket could jump by as much two thirds over the next decade, underpinned by a booming superannuation sector and the nation’s status as a “growth haven”, according to a new report by Macquarie Research. Jason Todd, head of Australian macro-economic research at Macquarie, said Australia’s super
Readers will know that MB has a bearish three-stage bust outlook for Australian house prices. phase one is monetary authorities pulling up prices and triggering minor falls (in the east as well as west). We see a little more tightening as needed but we may already be there; phase two is fiscal authorities tightening on
Via the AFR: Australia’s most successful and well-known stock pickers are under pressure as active managers fail to perform and investors opt for the safety and certainty of passively managed index funds. More than three-quarters of active large cap equity funds in Australia underperformed the indices they are measured against in calendar 2016, according to S&P
The US missile strikes in Syria today create a considerable investment issue. On the bullish side, US intervention in Syria to help stop the descent into a failed state could stem the flow of refugee from Syria and potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives. Stemming the flow of refugees (the UN estimates there are
God bless David Murray. Somehow this goes virtually unreported today: The chairman of the government’s Financial System Inquiry, former Future Fund chairman David Murray, yesterday sounded a further alarm on the housing boom, saying a crisis on the scale of the 1890s great property collapse could not be ruled out. “What people should do is
There has been a recent spate of feather ruffling directed at one area of superannuation not known for high levels of excitement. The area is MySuper and you can be forgiven for not knowing a lot about it. So why all the noise? – simply, some changes are coming to upset a typically cushy segment
GMO / James Montier hit on a lot of the themes near to my heart with a recent piece on secular stagnation and the rise of populism: The rise of populism has been one of the broad themes to emerge over the last few years. This has left many within the establishment scratching their heads
No market goes up in a straight line, and so the US stock market was due a pull back at some stage. The question that you have to ask at this point is whether this is a typical market retreat following a 4 month almost straight line rise or is it something more sinister? The
It’s been a big month for financial advice in Australia. Big 4 CEO’s have all returned from Canberra and now sit uncomfortably on their leather chairs in their corner offices. The advice regulator has continued the barrage with the timely release of a report admonishing the big instos for hiring each other’s bad apples. As luck
DXY fell again last night: Commodity currencies did too: Gold roared: Ominously, Brent fell: Base metals were mixed: Big miners too: EM stocks roared: But high yield is not impressed: US bonds were sold a little: Most European spreads fell though Italy rocketed (I’m a bit suspicious that this accurate): The S&P held on: So,
Yesterday we had a long look at solar and battery power and how they affect the electricity sector. Today we extend the battery analysis to the oil sector and look at electric cars. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark
Fossil fuels have a limited time as viable sources of energy. And I’m not talking about saving the planet or carbon taxes, simply economics. Coal, gas, oil, all have economics based on a “scarcity curve” – the more we use them, the deeper we need to dig to find more and more expensive they become
A new ETF from Inspire in the US is trying to show that bigotry knows no bounds (hat tip to the FT): The methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in activities that do not align with biblical values, which are: abortion; gambling; alcohol; pornography;
An interesting article out yesterday revealed the largesse local developers are now showering on brokers and real estate “advisers” to help move unsold stock from upcoming off the plan apartment developments: Commission payments of up to15 per cent, free tickets to Adele concerts and luxury holidays to Greece are on offer to mortgage brokers and
As covered today by Leith here and here today’s ABS release confirms what most of us suspect, that wage growth in the long term is looking pretty bleak. I won’t cross swords with the other fellas here on mega mortgage repayments and employments prospects but I thought I could chime in with some planning considerations.
Fund results out today from S&P are not good for active fund managers: The majority of Australian actively managed funds in all categories (equity and bonds) underperformed their respective benchmarks. This is the first time this has occurred across all categories in a calendar year since the first SPIVA Australia report was published in 2009.
Snapchat is listing shortly, probably early March. It’s a unicorn, a start-up with a valuation over $1b. It’s going to be valued at lots (USD25b?), and it loses money, which makes it hard to value. In the end, it’s a lottery ticket. Late last year there was a research paper out suggesting that the investment
AMP released their results last week, bringing with it news that it was reducing its adviser numbers across the network. This comes as no surprise given the results but does continue the trend of adviser number reductions across the big players in the market. See here and here. So what’s going on? Normally the fast
