The question of existence has fascinated students of philosophy for centuries. In the fifteenth century Rene Descartes produced the famous philosophical conclusion “cogito ergo sum”. Or in English “I think therefore I am”. My wife has been thinking a lot of late, particularly about the Tax Office web site. She’s been talking to them too,…
The press are carrying articles today talking about the performance of the biggest Super Funds. Here are the biggest 20 funds by size showing the size, number of Members, average balance and growth in member numbers or otherwise. I know there is this generally accepted view that fund managers always underperform and if you look…
Listed Investment Companies, known as LICs, are effectively a managed fund with the main difference being that they are traded on the ASX like a share instead of being unlisted and traded through the fund manager’s administration system. So for one trade, on the ASX, through an LIC, you can buy a portfolio of shares…
Marcus has updated this article for 2020 with the new average return numbers. You can find the updated article HERE We had a question on the Marcus Today Stock Discussion Group on Facebook asking: “Silly question but Marcus mentioned the average market return is about 9%, I assume that is capital growth and dividends included?”…
In response to a question in the Marcus Today Stock Discussion Group we worked out that over the last forty years the average total compound return from the All Ordinaries index per annum including dividends reinvested but not including franking over the last: 40 years was 11.18%. 30 years was 9.48%. 20 years was 8.66%.…
The S&P 500 has recently ticked a couple of sell signals on RSI and MACD (highlighted below). Despite that, fear or volatility is benign – here is the VIX (volatility) index that is used as a barometer of fear and greed – it is not predictive but does highlight when the market is “comfortable” (now)…
Having spent sixteen years in the UK and four years in Australia sitting on the institutional desks of some major brokers, particularly in the UK, one thing becomes apparent, that share prices don’t go up and down because of the fundamental reasons that commentators and the media obsess over in hindsight, they go up and…
I was studying the latest edition of Marcus Today whilst on holiday when my son asked what I was reading. Then came the question, “why do you bother?” Why not invest in some EFTs or in a managed fund and save yourself a lot of time and worry? I’ve been asked that question before and…
When a market goes up, almost every investment approach will work, and people like me can safely sell almost any old theory on how to make money in the stock market without being wrong. When the market goes up, there is room for all, for both value investors to set and forget and technical traders…
