The Retirement Income Covenant requires superannuation trustees to help retirees maximise income, manage risks and maintain flexible access to capital.
Among the most significant challenges are longevity, investment and inflation risks, which can all affect the sustainability and stability of retirement income.
While much of the debate focuses on ...
The wealthy were never the borrowers
Investors with substantial wealth generally have alternatives to borrowing inside super to acquire property. They can often buy outright or use borrowing arrangements outside super that offer greater flexibility and liquidity. Limited recourse borrowing matters to a different group: people with enough super to be ...
Many investors think of the share market as a multiple-choice test with just two answers. An investment is either good or bad. Find the good investments and you get rewarded.
In reality investing is a multiplayer game. The people you are playing against matter in the outcome you achieve.
A company’s future earnings matter, but how they compare with ...
Gold has caught a second wind.
After spending much of the year falling from its January record, the precious metal has climbed back around US$4,500 an ounce. The immediate catalyst was the US Treasury's decision to increase purchases of longer-dated government bonds, which pushed yields lower and weakened the US dollar, both of which are typically ...
Bond investors see themselves as ‘vigilantes’ who check government excess. Yet Japanese government gross debt stretches to a world-high 204% of GDP, a level that threatens global economic stability. US federal debt has doubled in the past decade to US$40 trillion. As this equals 126% of output, many warn of a debt crisis that will jeopardise the ...
What is life sciences real estate?
Life sciences real estate is characterised by facilities largely used for scientific research, diagnostics, healthcare, and innovation — most commonly in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical technology and pathology. These assets are classified within the ‘alternative’ real estate sector, sitting between Office, ...
For those of you who have not connected, I retired 6 months ago from being a full-time academic after researching retirement planning for nearly 20 years. Now I am focusing on implementing my findings: for myself, for individuals and for organisations. As I promised when I retired, I am providing a month-by-month account of my findings from the other ...
Few issues generate as much heat in Australia as housing. The focus tends to revolve around who possesses the assets and what one generation owes the next.
Earlier this year, we published an article titled '13 million spare bedrooms: Rethinking Australia's housing shortfall'. The piece challenged conventional thinking about housing affordability, ...
This is a blatant (if informal) opinion poll masquerading as an article on an issue I’ve been musing about recently. Firstlinks readers clearly think a lot about super strategies so I’m banking on some useful feedback in the comments.
Should pensions be reversionary (continuing automatically to a spouse when you die) or not?
I’ll declare a bias – I ...
I have written many times about why fears about ageing are misplaced.
For starters, we have panicked about it for a century.
Also, the reality is that we aren’t adding extra old years at the end of life. Instead, we are stretching out our entire lives. We work to older ages, but start work later, too. Women work a larger share of their lives. Here’s my ...
How much can retirees safely withdraw from their portfolios?
That’s one of the issues we’ve been addressing in our annual The State of Retirement Income report since November 2021. The study differs from some other widely used research on safe withdrawal rates in that it relies on forward-looking estimates for future market returns, as opposed to ...
Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, some AI-related stocks have soared to record highs despite elevated inflation, sweeping tariffs and war in the Middle East. A small group of companies now make up an outsized share of the US market, pushing concentration to levels not seen in decades.
That means investors in some index funds may be holding unintended ...
The Retirement Income Covenant requires superannuation trustees to help retirees maximise income, manage risks and maintain flexible access to capital.
Among the most significant challenges are longevity, investment and inflation risks, which can all affect the sustainability and stability of retirement income.
While much of the debate focuses on ...
The wealthy were never the borrowers
Investors with substantial wealth generally have alternatives to borrowing inside super to acquire property. They can often buy outright or use borrowing arrangements outside super that offer greater flexibility and liquidity. Limited recourse borrowing matters to a different group: people with enough super to be ...
Many investors think of the share market as a multiple-choice test with just two answers. An investment is either good or bad. Find the good investments and you get rewarded.
In reality investing is a multiplayer game. The people you are playing against matter in the outcome you achieve.
A company’s future earnings matter, but how they compare with ...
Gold has caught a second wind.
After spending much of the year falling from its January record, the precious metal has climbed back around US$4,500 an ounce. The immediate catalyst was the US Treasury's decision to increase purchases of longer-dated government bonds, which pushed yields lower and weakened the US dollar, both of which are typically ...
Bond investors see themselves as ‘vigilantes’ who check government excess. Yet Japanese government gross debt stretches to a world-high 204% of GDP, a level that threatens global economic stability. US federal debt has doubled in the past decade to US$40 trillion. As this equals 126% of output, many warn of a debt crisis that will jeopardise the ...
What is life sciences real estate?
Life sciences real estate is characterised by facilities largely used for scientific research, diagnostics, healthcare, and innovation — most commonly in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical technology and pathology. These assets are classified within the ‘alternative’ real estate sector, sitting between Office, ...
For those of you who have not connected, I retired 6 months ago from being a full-time academic after researching retirement planning for nearly 20 years. Now I am focusing on implementing my findings: for myself, for individuals and for organisations. As I promised when I retired, I am providing a month-by-month account of my findings from the other ...
Few issues generate as much heat in Australia as housing. The focus tends to revolve around who possesses the assets and what one generation owes the next.
Earlier this year, we published an article titled '13 million spare bedrooms: Rethinking Australia's housing shortfall'. The piece challenged conventional thinking about housing affordability, ...
This is a blatant (if informal) opinion poll masquerading as an article on an issue I’ve been musing about recently. Firstlinks readers clearly think a lot about super strategies so I’m banking on some useful feedback in the comments.
Should pensions be reversionary (continuing automatically to a spouse when you die) or not?
I’ll declare a bias – I ...
I have written many times about why fears about ageing are misplaced.
For starters, we have panicked about it for a century.
Also, the reality is that we aren’t adding extra old years at the end of life. Instead, we are stretching out our entire lives. We work to older ages, but start work later, too. Women work a larger share of their lives. Here’s my ...
How much can retirees safely withdraw from their portfolios?
That’s one of the issues we’ve been addressing in our annual The State of Retirement Income report since November 2021. The study differs from some other widely used research on safe withdrawal rates in that it relies on forward-looking estimates for future market returns, as opposed to ...
Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, some AI-related stocks have soared to record highs despite elevated inflation, sweeping tariffs and war in the Middle East. A small group of companies now make up an outsized share of the US market, pushing concentration to levels not seen in decades.
That means investors in some index funds may be holding unintended ...
