Reading time: 5 minutes Key Market Trends – trade tensions return August saw a return to ‘risk-off’ sentiment in global markets, reflecting a resumption in US-China trade tensions, growing signs that these tensions are impacting on global growth (especially in Asia and Europe) and related fears associated with the renewed inversion of the US yield

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Reading time: 5 minutes Key Market Trends – bonds still driving equities There were more modest moves in global financial markets over July, with earlier aggressive expectations of US Federal Reserve interest rate cuts tempered somewhat by signalling from the Fed. US-China trade tensions also continued to linger while markets braced for the Q2 US

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Reading time: 3 minutes Determining how to spread your funds across investment asset classes of varying risk and potential return is one of your most important investment decisions. Having a lot invested in equities will likely mean your long-run returns will be higher, but also that you will have to endure more volatility along the

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Reading time: 4 minutes Video: Quick highlights Key Market Trends A resumption of US-China trade tensions saw global equities pull back in May, with the MSCI All-Country World Index declining by 5.7% in local currency terms.  As seen in the chart below, this continues the broadly choppy performance of equity markets since early 2018, reflecting

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Reading time: 5 minutes Video: Quick highlights Asset Class Performance – global equities power on Global equities were the best performing of our seven major asset classes* in April, while Australian equities also posted good returns.  Supporting stocks was a better than feared US earnings reporting season, persistent low inflation and continued gradual improvement in

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Reading time: 4 minutes The proposed removal of franking credit rebates that is part of the ALP’s election policy has been an ongoing point of discussion over the last 12 months. Irrespective of debate around the upcoming election or the form any rule changes may ultimately take, a central issue for many investors is how

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The recent pull back in global equity markets has tended to fall most heavily on growth orientated stocks, which have also run the hardest in recent years.  Given the maturing global equity bull market, this suggests it might be opportune to consider a tilt towards more value orientated stocks, as is possible through fundamentally-weighted indexing

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Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have become popular investment options in recent years for Australian investors. An ETF is an open-ended fund which is bought or sold on the sharemarket just like any share and is generally designed to track the performance of an asset class or sector. They are known for their low management fees,

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Many people tend to look at long-term investing as something that they would want to consider or action ‘one day’, but seldom do they realise that the first step to a long-term strategy can be taken today. A new movement called the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement is well underway, picking up momentum as

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There have been enough debates, discussions and deliberations on what drives human behaviour. Theories have evolved and schools of thought have been devoted to the study of human motivation. Still, ages after Henry Ford designed the famous moving assembly line for manufacturing cars after studying people at work, although the studies of psychology and sociology

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