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Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 645

Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 645

Who knew copper could be sexy? It is for Australia’s mining giants which are falling over themselves to get more exposure to the metal. Recently, Rio Tinto proposed a $300 million merger with Glencore to create the world’s largest miner. It’s essentially a takeover and through it, Rio wants to increase earnings from copper and the AI data centre theme ...
Australia’s next great shift is regional

Australia’s next great shift is regional

Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact us to ask for a detailed brief. Australia is running an opportunity deficit in its biggest cities. Housing, congestion and service pressures are eroding the everyday “deal” in Sydney and Melbourne. The question is no longer whether people and investment will look elsewhere, but ...
Building a lazy ETF portfolio in 2026

Building a lazy ETF portfolio in 2026

In 2023, I wrote an article that proved popular – ‘The challenges of building a lazy portfolio’. It was about how I had spare cash at the time and wanted to create a simple, long-term portfolio with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The aim was to capture the performance of markets at low cost via such funds. What I thought would be an easy task turned ...
Market entry – dip your toe or jump in all at once?

Market entry – dip your toe or jump in all at once?

You’ve got a lump sum of cash, and you want to start investing in the stock market. You might consider ploughing it all in today. But then you worry: what if the share market then slumps? Fortunately, there is a wealth of data available that can help investors make better-informed decisions. Below, for the last 50 years of Australian share market data ...

Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 645

Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 645
Who knew copper could be sexy? It is for Australia’s mining giants which are falling over themselves to get more exposure to the metal. Recently, Rio Tinto proposed a $300 million merger with Glencore to create the world’s largest miner. It’s essentially a takeover and through it, Rio wants to increase earnings from copper and the AI data centre theme ...

Australia’s next great shift is regional

Australia’s next great shift is regional
Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact us to ask for a detailed brief. Australia is running an opportunity deficit in its biggest cities. Housing, congestion and service pressures are eroding the everyday “deal” in Sydney and Melbourne. The question is no longer whether people and investment will look elsewhere, but ...

Building a lazy ETF portfolio in 2026

Building a lazy ETF portfolio in 2026
In 2023, I wrote an article that proved popular – ‘The challenges of building a lazy portfolio’. It was about how I had spare cash at the time and wanted to create a simple, long-term portfolio with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The aim was to capture the performance of markets at low cost via such funds. What I thought would be an easy task turned ...

Market entry – dip your toe or jump in all at once?

Market entry – dip your toe or jump in all at once?
You’ve got a lump sum of cash, and you want to start investing in the stock market. You might consider ploughing it all in today. But then you worry: what if the share market then slumps? Fortunately, there is a wealth of data available that can help investors make better-informed decisions. Below, for the last 50 years of Australian share market data ...