As we near the end of the year, I thought I’d share my biggest lessons from 2025:
1. Good companies don’t necessarily make good investments
You can’t go wrong investing in good companies, right? It turns out, you can.
Globally, so-called quality stocks - characterised by high return on equity, stable earnings growth and low debt levels - have had one ...
Howard Marks is a billionaire debt investor and he’s the first to admit that he isn’t active in stock markets and is far from a tech wizard. However, he is a long-time observer of investor psychology and has successfully called out both the tech bubble in the 1990s and the subprime bubble which preceded the GFC.
Understanding bubbles
In his latest ...
“I do this for a living …” I plead in vain when confronted with the confident assertions of my be-suited friends in the big end of town mouthing off about residential property. Just because you are an expert bond trader, management consultant, CEO, banker or lawyer, doesn’t mean you know everything about residential property. I mean – do you live in a ...
Approximately 2.5 million Australians are projected to transition to life after full-time work (aka the retirement phase) within the next ten years, with 710,000 intending to retire in the next five years alone. For an industry managing $4.5 trillion in retirement savings, understanding these members is essential.
Four major research reports released ...
Of the many challenges in the world of retirement income, one of the most frequently noted is the lack of understanding and engagement displayed by ordinary Australians as they approach retirement. ‘If only pre-retirees engaged more, they’d be so much better off’, industry and regulators say.
But is it possible that this problem has been inadvertently ...
Many of you will have read my article “Can the sequence of investment returns ruin retirement?”. It introduced 'sequencing risk' and how a string of negative returns can impact your retirement. Here, we focus on how it can be managed.
In fact, the best antidote to sequencing risk is luck. If history is a guide, most Australians hopefully won’t ...
For years, the mantra around aged care and the family home was simple: think twice before you sell. But in a post-November 1 world with changing rules and financial implications that reach well beyond emotional ties, that advice has shifted to thinking three times.
Many people believe selling the family home is the only way to fund aged care, ...
The below chart shows the US share market since 1920 divided into ‘boom-bust’ cycles. Here I define a 'bust' as a decline of 20% or more for the market index. A 'boom' is the rally from the bottom of a fall of 20% or more to the start of the next fall of 20% or more, so the bottom of each bust is the starting point for the next boom-bust cycle.
The ...
The retail real estate asset class is benefitting from a cyclical upswing, evidenced by increased investor demand, transactional activity and sector-leading returns. Transaction activity across the retail sector reached $10.7 billion over the past year, surpassing the long-term average by +32%.1 Since mid-2024, the retail property sector has delivered ...
The following is an edited version of an interview between Neuberger Berman MD, Gabriel Ng, and Firstlinks’ James Gruber.
James Gruber: What is the case for private equity and how should investors think about it compared to the public markets?
Gabriel Ng: We believe that private equity has a role to play in an investor's overall asset allocation.
There ...
“There are many things money can buy, but the most valuable of all is freedom. Freedom to do what you want and to work for whom you respect.”- J. L. Collins, The Simple Path to Wealth
Many of us dream of having enough money to do whatever we want. If we want to lie on a beach for months on end, we can do that. If we want to travel the world, we can do ...
It’s been widely noted how profitless companies in the US have trounced the S&P 500 this year. Less spoken of is that a similar thing has happened here, according to Mark Freeman, CEO of Australian Foundation Investment Company (AFIC).
Gold and smaller miners have soared while many blue-chip stocks have been left behind. For fund managers like AFIC ...
As we near the end of the year, I thought I’d share my biggest lessons from 2025:
1. Good companies don’t necessarily make good investments
You can’t go wrong investing in good companies, right? It turns out, you can.
Globally, so-called quality stocks - characterised by high return on equity, stable earnings growth and low debt levels - have had one ...
Howard Marks is a billionaire debt investor and he’s the first to admit that he isn’t active in stock markets and is far from a tech wizard. However, he is a long-time observer of investor psychology and has successfully called out both the tech bubble in the 1990s and the subprime bubble which preceded the GFC.
Understanding bubbles
In his latest ...
“I do this for a living …” I plead in vain when confronted with the confident assertions of my be-suited friends in the big end of town mouthing off about residential property. Just because you are an expert bond trader, management consultant, CEO, banker or lawyer, doesn’t mean you know everything about residential property. I mean – do you live in a ...
Approximately 2.5 million Australians are projected to transition to life after full-time work (aka the retirement phase) within the next ten years, with 710,000 intending to retire in the next five years alone. For an industry managing $4.5 trillion in retirement savings, understanding these members is essential.
Four major research reports released ...
Of the many challenges in the world of retirement income, one of the most frequently noted is the lack of understanding and engagement displayed by ordinary Australians as they approach retirement. ‘If only pre-retirees engaged more, they’d be so much better off’, industry and regulators say.
But is it possible that this problem has been inadvertently ...
Many of you will have read my article “Can the sequence of investment returns ruin retirement?”. It introduced 'sequencing risk' and how a string of negative returns can impact your retirement. Here, we focus on how it can be managed.
In fact, the best antidote to sequencing risk is luck. If history is a guide, most Australians hopefully won’t ...
For years, the mantra around aged care and the family home was simple: think twice before you sell. But in a post-November 1 world with changing rules and financial implications that reach well beyond emotional ties, that advice has shifted to thinking three times.
Many people believe selling the family home is the only way to fund aged care, ...
The below chart shows the US share market since 1920 divided into ‘boom-bust’ cycles. Here I define a 'bust' as a decline of 20% or more for the market index. A 'boom' is the rally from the bottom of a fall of 20% or more to the start of the next fall of 20% or more, so the bottom of each bust is the starting point for the next boom-bust cycle.
The ...
The retail real estate asset class is benefitting from a cyclical upswing, evidenced by increased investor demand, transactional activity and sector-leading returns. Transaction activity across the retail sector reached $10.7 billion over the past year, surpassing the long-term average by +32%.1 Since mid-2024, the retail property sector has delivered ...
The following is an edited version of an interview between Neuberger Berman MD, Gabriel Ng, and Firstlinks’ James Gruber.
James Gruber: What is the case for private equity and how should investors think about it compared to the public markets?
Gabriel Ng: We believe that private equity has a role to play in an investor's overall asset allocation.
There ...
“There are many things money can buy, but the most valuable of all is freedom. Freedom to do what you want and to work for whom you respect.”- J. L. Collins, The Simple Path to Wealth
Many of us dream of having enough money to do whatever we want. If we want to lie on a beach for months on end, we can do that. If we want to travel the world, we can do ...
It’s been widely noted how profitless companies in the US have trounced the S&P 500 this year. Less spoken of is that a similar thing has happened here, according to Mark Freeman, CEO of Australian Foundation Investment Company (AFIC).
Gold and smaller miners have soared while many blue-chip stocks have been left behind. For fund managers like AFIC ...
