Ask most investors what determines their long-term returns and they’ll most likely talk about their asset allocation, the way they select their fund managers or their track records at getting macro calls right.
If you're planning to invest $500,000 in Australia in 2026, the timing may be in your favour. With the Reserve Bank holding the cash rate steady at 3.6% and markets entering a phase of cautious recovery, investors are navigating a landscape shaped by stabilising inflation, firmer demand, and new appetite for resilient, income-producing assets.
Most market commentaries explain major price moves after the fact with tidy causes that sound obvious only in hindsight. In my opinion, that’s not an intellectually honest approach in the current environment.
If you're planning to invest $500,000 in Australia in 2026, the timing may be in your favour. With the Reserve Bank holding the cash rate steady at 3.6% and markets entering a phase of cautious recovery, investors are navigating a landscape shaped by stabilising inflation, firmer demand, and new appetite for resilient, income-producing assets.
Most market commentaries explain major price moves after the fact with tidy causes that sound obvious only in hindsight. In my opinion, that’s not an intellectually honest approach in the current environment.
Access to the investing world has exploded in the last few decades. Investors may once have required brokers to do their trading, or apply directly to fund managers to invest. These days, investors have a range of options, direct and indirect for their holdings.
AI has quickly established an integral role in fund managers’ investment processes. For most, it has already become an integral part of their investing machinery. Fund managers are using it to read more, screen faster, test risks earlier and monitor their portfolios across larger pools of data.
If you’re a fund and/or ETF investor, you’ll be familiar with fund factsheets. These fund summaries are designed to inform investors, but it’s also well-known that marketing teams often use them to present their funds attractively.
We invest for all sorts of reasons, but at the core, it’s to improve our financial lives – to afford the things we want or need in life. This is the reason why the terms ‘yield’ and ‘total return’ can be so important when you are choosing an investment – they are not interchangeable, though they are often confused for being so.
Volatility, market commentators reliably assure us, is a buying opportunity. It is a welcome thought in a difficult market, most popular with those not presently experiencing it.
How well is your fixed income investment portfolio expected to perform during an economic shock? Have you considered what could happen to your portfolio if the wrong things happen at the right time? How defensive will your fixed income investments be in the next economic crisis?
Since the 50% capital gains tax (CGT) discount was introduced in Australia in 1999, many investors have followed a relatively consistent wealth-building playbook: purchase residential property, absorb short-term cash flow losses via negative gearing, and rely on long-term capital growth supported by favourable tax treatment.
Sustainable investing has been through plenty of challenges of late. After a string of political and social backlashes, the return of a US president who appears to be opposed to creating a more sustainable future, a rise in greenwashing cases and a challenging period of relative performance, sustainable investing has become more demanding and, arguably, more useful.
The Federal Reserve has a new chairman in position. Kevin Warsh recently chaired his first meeting and the message was clear: global markets need to get used to less hand-holding looking forward.
Underperformance by an actively managed fund in your portfolio is uncomfortable, but it’s not always a sell signal.
Because context matters. Whether a fund is temporarily out of favour, structurally flawed, too expensive, or no longer fit for your portfolio should change your response to underperformance.