Rethinking retirement (Part 1)
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Are you putting the “money cart” ahead of the “life horse”? In this article, we return to a subject discussed previously in “Retirement planning: more than a financial exercise”, published…
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Household Income, Wealth and Debt in Australia
Significant wealth rarer than marketers would have us believe The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently released its bi-annual survey of Australian household income and wealth for 2013-14[1]. In January 2012,…
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The only free lunch(es) in finance
The investment equivalent of par golf One of our four key investment philosophies is that “Diversification is key”. Effective diversification requires you to invest in broad based asset portfolios of…
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Housing (and home loan) affordability … again
The “experts” claim housing is as affordable as it was in the 1980’s … We have discussed housing affordability, either directly or indirectly, in a number of previous articles e.g.…
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Future capital: a key input to personal finance decisions
Your age may be a poor guide to financial decisions When it comes to personal finance, as in most areas of our lives, we often rely on some fairly simple…
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The increasing cost of retirement
Reserve Bank Governor notes retirement has become more expensive In a recent speech to the “Australian Financial Review” Banking and Wealth Summit, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens…
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What’s an ideal financial planning client?
Not all prospective clients suit our financial planning approach Financial planning and financial planners come in for a fair amount of, often deserved, criticism. Hardly a week goes by without…
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Investment Yield versus Return for Risk
What to do when cash rates fall? With interest rates on cash in Australia falling to record lows, in absolute terms, there seems to be a scramble by investors to chase…
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Your emotions complicate investment decision making
Lifestyle asset decisions have a heavy emotional content It’s not always clear what’s a lifestyle asset versus an investment asset. Recent discussions with a client regarding a proposed holiday house…
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What we know now is no guide to future investment returns
Asset prices quickly reflect everything we know A fundamental tenet of our investment philosophy is that markets do a pretty good job in quickly incorporating information into asset prices. Current…
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