It’s been a crazy start to the year. We’ve had the US break international law by seizing the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro. We’ve had Trump threaten the takeover of Greenland. We’ve had the US Justice Department open a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over the Fed’s building renovation project. We’ve had ...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Davos speech dramatically amplifies the political risk embedded in Australian housing policy and accelerates the timeline for when those chickens come home to roost.
His central thesis, that we are witnessing "a rupture, not a transition" in the global order, means the comfortable policy assumptions that have ...
Like the track Upside Down by Diana Ross in the final series of Stranger Things, the ASX has become an upside-down world in which riskier dividend yields sit below risk-free government bond yields. Now is as important a time as ever for investors to think carefully about what bond-like stocks to hold in their portfolios.
Introduction
The Australian ...
Our playbook for investing in commodities has historically been to identify high-quality assets that sit at attractive points on their commodity cost curve, and to establish a position when the balance sheet is solid and the commodity price has cost curve support (i.e. some producers are losing money at spot pricing). Management also matters in mining: ...
Gold entered 2026 the same way it exited 2025: at record highs. To date, the gold price has already notched seven all-time highs this year, extending a run that saw more than 53 new records in 2025 alone, totalling 95 all-time highs since 2024. For some investors, this raises an uncomfortable question: have we missed it?
In my experience, that question ...
Top convictions
The evolving artificial intelligence (AI) story will unlock more value in Asia’s technology stocks
Reforms to improve returns will bolster the appeal of Korean and Japanese equities
The diversification trade will benefit Asia’s local currency bonds, and a structural shift makes Asia high yield compelling in 2026
The whirl of tariff ...
Javier Estrada’s latest research, “Expected Stock Returns in Bullish Times,” shines a spotlight on the mathematical drivers of stock returns – and why today’s market exuberance should be met with caution. By analyzing more than 150 years (1872–2024) of US market data, Estrada decomposed annual returns into their primary sources: dividend yield, ...
One question that I am repeatedly hearing from investors is this: in an expensive market, where can I find opportunities? My answer has surprised them: look at quality stocks. Here’s why.
Let’s first define what quality stocks are. MSCI indices say they’re shares with attributes such as high returns on equity, predictable earnings growth and low debt ...
Investment legend Ray Dalio has a historian’s eye and quantitative bent that gives him a unique perspective on markets. A recent post of his reflecting on 2025 and looking at what’s ahead is a case in point.
Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tanking currencies
While everyone’s fixated on US stocks ...
There has been a lot written about franking credits over the years, and none more so than on Firstlinks. So please bear with me, as I sort through a perceived franking credits issue that has surfaced since the updated proposal for Division 296 tax legislation was announced by Treasurer, Jim Chalmers in October last year (also known as Better Targeted ...
The major banks have been the mainstay of the domestic investment landscape in Australia for over 100 years. While credit cycles have come and gone, as the country has prospered and the population has grown, the banks have been a major beneficiary. Currently Australia’s top five companies by market capitalisation are the four major retail banks and ...
Economists are not best placed to decide if we are in a stock market bubble. But as we look to the future of artificial intelligence’s (AI) impact on global economies, we see two potential scenarios: an ‘AI Boom’, where AI is the real deal and is rapidly adopted; and an ‘AI Bust’, where a stock market bubble bursts. Read on for a summary of our ...
It’s been a crazy start to the year. We’ve had the US break international law by seizing the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro. We’ve had Trump threaten the takeover of Greenland. We’ve had the US Justice Department open a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over the Fed’s building renovation project. We’ve had ...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Davos speech dramatically amplifies the political risk embedded in Australian housing policy and accelerates the timeline for when those chickens come home to roost.
His central thesis, that we are witnessing "a rupture, not a transition" in the global order, means the comfortable policy assumptions that have ...
Like the track Upside Down by Diana Ross in the final series of Stranger Things, the ASX has become an upside-down world in which riskier dividend yields sit below risk-free government bond yields. Now is as important a time as ever for investors to think carefully about what bond-like stocks to hold in their portfolios.
Introduction
The Australian ...
Our playbook for investing in commodities has historically been to identify high-quality assets that sit at attractive points on their commodity cost curve, and to establish a position when the balance sheet is solid and the commodity price has cost curve support (i.e. some producers are losing money at spot pricing). Management also matters in mining: ...
Gold entered 2026 the same way it exited 2025: at record highs. To date, the gold price has already notched seven all-time highs this year, extending a run that saw more than 53 new records in 2025 alone, totalling 95 all-time highs since 2024. For some investors, this raises an uncomfortable question: have we missed it?
In my experience, that question ...
Top convictions
The evolving artificial intelligence (AI) story will unlock more value in Asia’s technology stocks
Reforms to improve returns will bolster the appeal of Korean and Japanese equities
The diversification trade will benefit Asia’s local currency bonds, and a structural shift makes Asia high yield compelling in 2026
The whirl of tariff ...
Javier Estrada’s latest research, “Expected Stock Returns in Bullish Times,” shines a spotlight on the mathematical drivers of stock returns – and why today’s market exuberance should be met with caution. By analyzing more than 150 years (1872–2024) of US market data, Estrada decomposed annual returns into their primary sources: dividend yield, ...
One question that I am repeatedly hearing from investors is this: in an expensive market, where can I find opportunities? My answer has surprised them: look at quality stocks. Here’s why.
Let’s first define what quality stocks are. MSCI indices say they’re shares with attributes such as high returns on equity, predictable earnings growth and low debt ...
Investment legend Ray Dalio has a historian’s eye and quantitative bent that gives him a unique perspective on markets. A recent post of his reflecting on 2025 and looking at what’s ahead is a case in point.
Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tanking currencies
While everyone’s fixated on US stocks ...
There has been a lot written about franking credits over the years, and none more so than on Firstlinks. So please bear with me, as I sort through a perceived franking credits issue that has surfaced since the updated proposal for Division 296 tax legislation was announced by Treasurer, Jim Chalmers in October last year (also known as Better Targeted ...
The major banks have been the mainstay of the domestic investment landscape in Australia for over 100 years. While credit cycles have come and gone, as the country has prospered and the population has grown, the banks have been a major beneficiary. Currently Australia’s top five companies by market capitalisation are the four major retail banks and ...
Economists are not best placed to decide if we are in a stock market bubble. But as we look to the future of artificial intelligence’s (AI) impact on global economies, we see two potential scenarios: an ‘AI Boom’, where AI is the real deal and is rapidly adopted; and an ‘AI Bust’, where a stock market bubble bursts. Read on for a summary of our ...
