For the last few years there has been much talk of a “cost-of-living” crisis in Australia and of “falling living standards”. This has flared up again lately with the pickup in inflation resulting in a renewed fall in real wages.
In the last week the OECD noted that: a 5% fall in real wages over the last five years was amongst the worst in OECD ...
Two things are needed to be a successful income investor. You must have the patience to stay the course with existing positions so income compounds over time. You must also continually focus on the best place to invest your next dollar for future income growth.
This dichotomy can be difficult to navigate. Long-standing positions with significant ...
The Commonwealth Government’s Capital Gains Tax (CGT) reforms begin with a sensible principle: tax real financial gains rather than inflation. To advance this principle, Parliament passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 in June, which will see changes to the CGT from 1 July 2027. Under the current system, individuals generally ...
With its capital expenditure cycle in full swing, AI investment in fixed assets is up ~4.5x in three years. Outside of war times, this growth in fixed assets has no precedent, easily eclipsing the US canal mania of 1835 and sits well above last century’s dotcom boom (Chart 1).
Chart 1. AI build-out is eclipsing previous investment booms (Index, ...
In "Are Active Managers Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight?" I argued that the rise of passive investing has handed price-setting to sophisticated systematic players, and that discretionary active managers must evolve. Markets are not the only place this has happened. Professional basketball, Formula 1 and chess were all reshaped by data over the past two ...
Robert Cochran tells me that it all started with a big blue bus.
Well, not quite.
One of the UK’s top pension funds started much longer ago, in 1815 in the Royal Exchange coffee rooms in Edinburgh. It was the time of the Enlightenment and a much stronger mastery of numbers. Gathered in the rooms were the money men of the day. They had been taking a ...
Every year, we spend considerable time reviewing our underlying managers, not simply looking at returns, but assessing how they think, where they find opportunity and whether they remain disciplined through changing market conditions.
Following the end of FY26, we asked ten of our underlying managers a simple question: What are you seeing today that ...
Simonelle is on leave and Mark LaMonica is filling in with the editor’s note this week.
He wears a mask and his face grows to fit it
There are few better lines in literature.
And while there are several ways to interpret Orwell’s poignant observation is his essay Shooting an Elephant, its meaning to me is clear. The constructs that guide the roles we ...
Financial markets spent much of the 2026 financial year climbing a wall of worry that, at times, resembled a cliff face. In February 2026, Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, resulting in a spike in oil prices and a sharp sell-off in global share markets. However, as is the case with most geo-political shocks, ...
The tax changes in May’s federal Budget have triggered a familiar reflex among wealthy families and their advisers: how do we reduce some of the pain?
There is a fair bit to weigh up. Division 296 is now law, taxing super balances above $3 million from 1 July 2026. The CGT and negative gearing changes passed in June and are law too, in force from 1 ...
Throughout our many decades as investors in the sharemarket, we have lived through various periods where people begin to seriously question whether using a value philosophy can still yield good long-term results.
This question generally rears its head when sharemarkets are driven by momentum or themes, and becomes more intense when stockmarkets are ...
Australians have understandable reasons for favouring domestic shares. Local companies are familiar, dividends can carry franking credits and the market has produced many successful businesses. But familiarity can disguise concentration. At 30 June 2026, MSCI Australia had 40.8% in financials and 24.5% in materials. Nearly two-thirds of the index was ...
For the last few years there has been much talk of a “cost-of-living” crisis in Australia and of “falling living standards”. This has flared up again lately with the pickup in inflation resulting in a renewed fall in real wages.
In the last week the OECD noted that: a 5% fall in real wages over the last five years was amongst the worst in OECD ...
Two things are needed to be a successful income investor. You must have the patience to stay the course with existing positions so income compounds over time. You must also continually focus on the best place to invest your next dollar for future income growth.
This dichotomy can be difficult to navigate. Long-standing positions with significant ...
The Commonwealth Government’s Capital Gains Tax (CGT) reforms begin with a sensible principle: tax real financial gains rather than inflation. To advance this principle, Parliament passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 in June, which will see changes to the CGT from 1 July 2027. Under the current system, individuals generally ...
With its capital expenditure cycle in full swing, AI investment in fixed assets is up ~4.5x in three years. Outside of war times, this growth in fixed assets has no precedent, easily eclipsing the US canal mania of 1835 and sits well above last century’s dotcom boom (Chart 1).
Chart 1. AI build-out is eclipsing previous investment booms (Index, ...
In "Are Active Managers Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight?" I argued that the rise of passive investing has handed price-setting to sophisticated systematic players, and that discretionary active managers must evolve. Markets are not the only place this has happened. Professional basketball, Formula 1 and chess were all reshaped by data over the past two ...
Robert Cochran tells me that it all started with a big blue bus.
Well, not quite.
One of the UK’s top pension funds started much longer ago, in 1815 in the Royal Exchange coffee rooms in Edinburgh. It was the time of the Enlightenment and a much stronger mastery of numbers. Gathered in the rooms were the money men of the day. They had been taking a ...
Every year, we spend considerable time reviewing our underlying managers, not simply looking at returns, but assessing how they think, where they find opportunity and whether they remain disciplined through changing market conditions.
Following the end of FY26, we asked ten of our underlying managers a simple question: What are you seeing today that ...
Simonelle is on leave and Mark LaMonica is filling in with the editor’s note this week.
He wears a mask and his face grows to fit it
There are few better lines in literature.
And while there are several ways to interpret Orwell’s poignant observation is his essay Shooting an Elephant, its meaning to me is clear. The constructs that guide the roles we ...
Financial markets spent much of the 2026 financial year climbing a wall of worry that, at times, resembled a cliff face. In February 2026, Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, resulting in a spike in oil prices and a sharp sell-off in global share markets. However, as is the case with most geo-political shocks, ...
The tax changes in May’s federal Budget have triggered a familiar reflex among wealthy families and their advisers: how do we reduce some of the pain?
There is a fair bit to weigh up. Division 296 is now law, taxing super balances above $3 million from 1 July 2026. The CGT and negative gearing changes passed in June and are law too, in force from 1 ...
Throughout our many decades as investors in the sharemarket, we have lived through various periods where people begin to seriously question whether using a value philosophy can still yield good long-term results.
This question generally rears its head when sharemarkets are driven by momentum or themes, and becomes more intense when stockmarkets are ...
Australians have understandable reasons for favouring domestic shares. Local companies are familiar, dividends can carry franking credits and the market has produced many successful businesses. But familiarity can disguise concentration. At 30 June 2026, MSCI Australia had 40.8% in financials and 24.5% in materials. Nearly two-thirds of the index was ...
