Much has been written recently about the relative merits of taking an active approach or just letting your funds track an index. The growth of passive funds has been extraordinary. The head of Vanguard in Australia was in the news last week as the FUM have grown to $5.4 trillion. $2.9 trillion is tracking indices…
Grandkids Folio. It was fascinating to read Henrys response to the ‘Ask Henry’ question about setting up a folio for a grandchild. We’ve ‘been there and done that’ and can totally support Henry’s advice. We set up a folio for our grandchildren quite some time ago. We looked at structures where they would be joint…
When I started broking in 1982 there were no personal computers let alone email or online broking. Everyone used full service broking because they had to. Now you don’t have to but the industry still exists and if you talk to most people about full service brokers they will immediately launch into the terrible experiences…
Thanks to compulsory superannuation most people are invested in managed funds. You didn’t really make a choice to invest in managed funds but courtesy of the cozy relationship between employers and fund managers almost all of you tick that little box that says “put my super in your default fund” when you are employed. The…
NINE SECTORS THAT SHOULD HAVE GOOD RESULTS NEXT MONTH (AND FIVE THAT SHOULDN’T) We had a question on the Marcus Today stock discussion group on Facebook asking whether there was anything on the horizon that could upset the recent recovery in Orora (ORA). The most likely thing to upset any stock at the moment is…
There is a natural assumption in almost every aspect of life that, from playing a cricket shot to investing in the stockmarket, there is a trade off between risk and reward. But when it comes to investing, one of the most common mistakes is to look at returns, at forecasts, at earnings growth and dividends,…
I cannot tell you how many times I have read that you double your money in Australian property investment every ten years. It is the core assumption in all property marketing it seems. Of course to make any money out of that implied 7 per cent return per annum your rent has to cover your…
This was written in 2014…. A friend is trying to decide whether to send their child to the local Catholic School or the local Private School. They have a choice and have asked me to do a few numbers. Here’s the benefit of having the Lord by your side: If you assume that all other…
From 1941 to the low in 1974, the average annual compound return on the All Ordinaries Index for 33 years was 2.9 per cent per annum. Take off inflation of 4 per cent and you were going backwards. And that doesn’t include 1929 to 1941, which would have pulled it even lower. In the next…
