Making America Great Again I’m not sure about the ‘again’ bit. It seems to me that America has never lost its supremacy. That’s not due to successive Presidents but to the amazing innovation and aggressive marketing of so many American companies. I’m sitting writing this edition of Retirement Today on my MacBook Pro laptop. It’s…
The Waiting Game Waiting is boring. It’s particularly boring for anyone who likes to be active, making things happen, making decisions, seeing the consequences. Waiting is a passive activity not suited to the sort of people who are likely to run their own SMSF or investment folio. Having been convinced that a significant market correction…
My nineteen-year-old daughter and I did our recreational boat operator’s course together. A day in a classroom and a day on the water. It was the first time I have been in the classroom in a while but I have to say, as a financial professional and a veteran of much financial education, there was…
After much long term nudging, I have taken the time to build a Marcus Today spreadsheet of Hybrids, convertible preference shares and capital notes. Here it is. The most recent issues are at the top and the most recent issue from each of the major issuers (mostly the Banks and Macquarie) are highlighted in orange…
Let’s take a baseline retiree as an example – An 80-year-old Australian couple with $1m to live off in a house with no mortgage in a zero tax environment. They hold the classic Australian equities portfolio that averages out to a yield of around 4.5% plus average market franking (about 72%) taking it up to…
Leave it to the Grandkids? Reading the ABC News web site, as is my habit, I came across an interesting article by Owain Emslie and Danielle Wood discussing a report from the Grattan Institute on inheritances. The Grattan Institute is well known for its support of an inheritance tax to fix the country’s budget problems…
Here is a video you should all watch, it is on a website called LiveWire and you’ll find it in their top trending articles, for a reason. It is a video from a chap called Donald Amstad from Aberdeen Standard Investments. You have probably never heard of Aberdeen Standard Investments, but they are a large…
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…
