Jonathan Baird, Investment Specialist, Western Asset Compared to global peers, Australians tend to have a very low allocation to fixed income (bonds) in their investment portfolios, preferring to allocate to cash and term deposits. Yet bonds can be a reliable and stable income investment, providing a relatively high level of capital stability alongside meaningful diversification

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Forget about fake news – have you heard the good news?  In 1990, 35% of the world’s people lived in absolute poverty.  By 2015, just 9.6% did.  By 2015, more than 1.25 billion people were lifted out of extreme poverty, which is roughly 138,000 people per day. The Brookings Institute calculates that half of the

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Financial research suggests that so-called “quality” companies, i.e. those with high return on equity (or “ROE”), tend to be able to produce market-beating shareholder returns.  But as this note demonstrates, it’s not enough to simply rank companies based on their current ROE – rather consideration must also be given to the likely sustainability of their

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Look beyond the headlines & record trading value! Dramatic sharemarket falls caused the Australian ETF industry to fall in value, declining 3.2% ($1.3B) to end the month at $40.8B.  That said, observers of the industry need to look beyond the headline AuM figure which was caused entirely by asset value depreciation, as net flows were,

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Global stocks took a tumble in October, reflecting ongoing concerns with regard to US interest rates and tech stocks. Gold was the best performing asset class in the month, as rising bond yields also limited returns from fixed-income markets despite the slump in stocks. Australian equities dropped in line with global stocks, while losses in listed

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Financial literacy is a complicated and often sensitive topic. In this post, I won’t cover the personal finance aspects of this area (i.e. saving, budgeting and debt management) and instead I’ll focus on the investment and retirement planning side. Understanding the long-term effects of compounding returns, management fees on investment products, and inflation can help

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The Importance of a Globally Diversified Portfolio The U.S. midterms are once again upon us and, as has often been the case in both Australia and abroad during 2018, it is a time of great political instability and uncertainty. The last several months have already seen markets driven in both directions by trade and tax

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The recent decline in equity prices has once again highlighted the importance of asset allocation and portfolio diversification.  As will be demonstrated in this note, although corporate bonds and hybrid securities have some exposure to credit risk, their valuations have held up relatively well during the recent period of equity market turmoil. This highlights their

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Many investors are aware of the benefits of international diversification.  Unfortunately, adding global equity exposure to your portfolio also usually involve an income sacrifice, as dividend yields internationally generally tend to be lower than in Australia.  As this note will demonstrate, however, it’s now possible to have your income and international diversification too, thanks to

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In light of fairly significant sharemarket falls in recent weeks we’ve heard plenty of our clients query where the opportunities for portfolio construction may lie in asset classes other than equities or otherwise discuss potentially overlooked equity exposures. It seems that a number of our clients are adjusting their portfolios to more of a ‘risk-off’

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