Australia is in a housing quagmire. Each aimless and counterproductive lurch finds us mired deeper in a morass.
In my eleven years in Australia I’ve seen multiple attempts at increasing affordability. None of these affordability measures are designed to lower housing prices. Pretending there is a way to make housing more affordable without somebody ...
If asked to identify a stock that has achieved over a 500% total return, compounded earnings at an annualized growth rate of 10% or greater, traded at an earnings multiple of less than 15x, and maintained or raised its dividend for over 20 consecutive years, what names come to mind?
If you answered Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, or Nvidia, you would only ...
This chart shows the inflation and policy cash rate picture in Australia from 1993. The dots in the upper section represent annual (rolling four-quarter) CPI inflation each quarter (as quarterly has been the main reporting interval for inflation in Australia).
Click to enlarge
Red dots for inflation above 3%; black dots for inflation below 2%; and ...
In 2025, with credit spreads normalising, and in some segments moving below long-term averages, a number of yield hungry credit investors responded by adding risk to meet investment objectives. The approach taken to sustain portfolio yields of 6%+ varied from increasing credit risk, interest/spread duration and/or leverage.
While mostly still at ...
The first publication of Firstlinks (as Cuffelinks) was 13 years ago in Feb 2013. Longevity was an issue back then. Paul Keating reflected on the growing gap in our retirement incomes system through people living longer. David Bell wondered if people looked back, would they reflect on the performance of their super fund – or the attainment of goals and ...
Australia’s commercial real estate sector exhibited a recovery through 2025, with property values stabilising and returns moving into positive territory. As we enter 2026, this momentum is expected to continue, supported by strong fundamentals across all core commercial real estate sectors.
Commercial real estate continues to demonstrate compelling ...
While most Australians struggle with housing affordability, savvy buyers are leveraging over 50 government schemes to break into the property market. The difference? They know the rules of the game.
Melbourne's controversial success story
Last week, I encountered a fascinating perspective on Melbourne's property market. What many dismiss as a ‘basket ...
There’s an old joke that marriage is picking the person you’ll spend forever asking, ‘Any thoughts on dinner?’
What to eat is just one of an estimated 35,000 decisions humans make each day.
To make decisions more efficiently humans use heuristics or mental shortcuts. Heuristics are used to make inconsequential decisions but also to reduce the cognitive ...
Capital gains tax is once again the subject of parliamentary debate, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers declining to rule out options for reform.
Along with negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount has long been suggested as one cause of Australia’s housing affordability crisis.
The tax applies to the capital gain when an asset is held for more than a ...
The Ozempic moment for SaaS (software as a service) refers to a pivotal disruption scenario where a transformative technology threatens to erode or fundamentally reshape an established market leader’s core business model, much like the hype around Ozempic (and other GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy) did to ResMed (ASX:RMD) around 2023.
Back in mid-2023, as ...
I promise this will be my last article for a while on Division 296 tax (the proposed new tax for people with more than $3 million in super). There are other interesting things to talk about when it comes to super. But with so much commentary about the need to ‘do something’ to respond to the new tax, I wanted to throw my thoughts into the mix.
A ...
We have had our fair share of bubble talk in the AI space over the last six months. So many people argue that AI stocks are in a bubble and that bubble may lead to a crash soon. But while we can debate the former, I think the latter is the wrong conclusion.
It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to identify a bubble in real time. Still, even if you ...
Australia is in a housing quagmire. Each aimless and counterproductive lurch finds us mired deeper in a morass.
In my eleven years in Australia I’ve seen multiple attempts at increasing affordability. None of these affordability measures are designed to lower housing prices. Pretending there is a way to make housing more affordable without somebody ...
If asked to identify a stock that has achieved over a 500% total return, compounded earnings at an annualized growth rate of 10% or greater, traded at an earnings multiple of less than 15x, and maintained or raised its dividend for over 20 consecutive years, what names come to mind?
If you answered Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, or Nvidia, you would only ...
This chart shows the inflation and policy cash rate picture in Australia from 1993. The dots in the upper section represent annual (rolling four-quarter) CPI inflation each quarter (as quarterly has been the main reporting interval for inflation in Australia).
Click to enlarge
Red dots for inflation above 3%; black dots for inflation below 2%; and ...
In 2025, with credit spreads normalising, and in some segments moving below long-term averages, a number of yield hungry credit investors responded by adding risk to meet investment objectives. The approach taken to sustain portfolio yields of 6%+ varied from increasing credit risk, interest/spread duration and/or leverage.
While mostly still at ...
The first publication of Firstlinks (as Cuffelinks) was 13 years ago in Feb 2013. Longevity was an issue back then. Paul Keating reflected on the growing gap in our retirement incomes system through people living longer. David Bell wondered if people looked back, would they reflect on the performance of their super fund – or the attainment of goals and ...
Australia’s commercial real estate sector exhibited a recovery through 2025, with property values stabilising and returns moving into positive territory. As we enter 2026, this momentum is expected to continue, supported by strong fundamentals across all core commercial real estate sectors.
Commercial real estate continues to demonstrate compelling ...
While most Australians struggle with housing affordability, savvy buyers are leveraging over 50 government schemes to break into the property market. The difference? They know the rules of the game.
Melbourne's controversial success story
Last week, I encountered a fascinating perspective on Melbourne's property market. What many dismiss as a ‘basket ...
There’s an old joke that marriage is picking the person you’ll spend forever asking, ‘Any thoughts on dinner?’
What to eat is just one of an estimated 35,000 decisions humans make each day.
To make decisions more efficiently humans use heuristics or mental shortcuts. Heuristics are used to make inconsequential decisions but also to reduce the cognitive ...
Capital gains tax is once again the subject of parliamentary debate, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers declining to rule out options for reform.
Along with negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount has long been suggested as one cause of Australia’s housing affordability crisis.
The tax applies to the capital gain when an asset is held for more than a ...
The Ozempic moment for SaaS (software as a service) refers to a pivotal disruption scenario where a transformative technology threatens to erode or fundamentally reshape an established market leader’s core business model, much like the hype around Ozempic (and other GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy) did to ResMed (ASX:RMD) around 2023.
Back in mid-2023, as ...
I promise this will be my last article for a while on Division 296 tax (the proposed new tax for people with more than $3 million in super). There are other interesting things to talk about when it comes to super. But with so much commentary about the need to ‘do something’ to respond to the new tax, I wanted to throw my thoughts into the mix.
A ...
We have had our fair share of bubble talk in the AI space over the last six months. So many people argue that AI stocks are in a bubble and that bubble may lead to a crash soon. But while we can debate the former, I think the latter is the wrong conclusion.
It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to identify a bubble in real time. Still, even if you ...
