Among many other lessons, the pandemic has brought with it the realisation that none of us is invincible. The virus doesn’t discriminate is what the health experts have been telling us for close to two years now. Naturally, 2020 and 2021 has seen a significant increase in interest in estate planning. Young and old, everyone…
One of the most powerful trends of 2020 was no doubt the huge surge in retail investors joining the stockmarket frenzy. With fresh stimulus cheques and stay-at-home orders in place, many turned to shares to pass their time. In a world where financial literacy remains incredibly low, any engagement with investing should be seen as…
The FAANGs are ubiquitous in the 2020s, and the 2010s for that matter, with those unwilling to invest in these world-changing businesses ultimately being left behind. Whether you were a traditional ‘value’ investor or someone seeking fully franked dividends in Australia, if you didn’t own Google at some point in the last decade, you have…
Draft legislation for the impending ‘Retirement Income Covenant’ was released this week, with SMSF trustees no doubt breathing a sigh of relief after being exempt from the new law. The change in legislation will require all APRA-regulated funds, specifically industry and corporate super plans, to develop and implement a retirement income strategy for those who…
Evergrande Group (HKG: 3333) has dominated headlines, news bulletins and investor psyches in recent weeks, with long-held concerns about China bubbling to the surface once again. Put simply, Evergrande is China’s largest property developer, and a group that has been central to the boom in Asia’s credit markets in recent years. The group has also…
BHP has been the most talked-about company in recent weeks, for both good and bad reasons. Investors had to first digest the massive merger deal with Woodside Petroleum. Then it was the the decision to delist from the London Stock Exchange and bring the listing home to the ASX. The highlight, no doubt, was the…
Class Super (ASX:CL1), which sits squarely among the leading SMSF administration and service providers, recently released its annual benchmark report. Prepared in conjunction with the SMSF Association and several other industry experts, the report flagged ‘resilience in a time of constant change’ as the key trend of the year. Despite expectations of a significant fall…
It seems to be the month of change in the financial services industry, with a raft of measures hitting the financial advice sector in October. They aren’t alone, however, with the Australian Tax Office set to extend their SuperStream system to all superannuation funds, but particular self-managed super funds or SMSFs. From 1 October, SMSF…
In many ways Salesforce.com was ahead of its time. The customer relationship management or CRM provider was just another player in an increasingly popular space except for one key difference. The group was among the first CRMs to be delivered in a web browser, rather than via a downloaded program as was the rage in…
The active vs. passive debate has been raging for close to a decade now. From a macro level it is abundantly clear that passive has one. The sheer flow of assets moving into passive strategies has of itself driven this outperformance. For those new to investing, passive investing is better known as index-tracking, in which…
