Reading time: 4 minutes Following a “V-shaped” recovery from the sharp market sell-off late last year, US equities now face a reality check as we head into the Q1 earnings reporting season. Although early earnings results have broadly met expectations, there seems more downside than upside risk to the earnings outlook as this year progresses.

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Reading time: 7 minutes Volatility returned to investment markets over the past year as growth accelerated and central banks, especially the US Federal Reserve (Fed), started to remove excess liquidity by raising interest rates and reversing quantitative easing.  As a defensive, income focused equity strategy, the BetaShares Legg Mason Real Income Fund (managed fund) (RINC)

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Quick read: 3 minutes JD.com aka Jingdong could be the biggest company you’ve never heard of. The company started as a small bricks and mortar store in Bejing in 1998 and moved online in 2004. It now provides over 314 million active customers in China with direct access to an unrivalled range of authentic high-quality

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Reading time: 5 minutes AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE! The Australian ETF industry finished the first quarter strongly, recording 13% growth for the quarter to reach a fresh high The industry ended March at a record $46.1B, with its market cap increasing by 2.9% (+$1.3B) over the month Trading activity was also very strong, with the monthly

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Reading time: 6 minutes With interest rates around the world in low single digits, investors have been forced to seek stocks paying a decent dividend yield to satisfy their income requirements. In Australia, investors have turned to high dividend payers such as the big four banks (a tough call given the headwinds from the Royal

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Reading time: 5 minutes Property gains on lower rates Australian listed property was the best performing of our seven major asset classes* in March, benefiting from a steep drop in global bond yields as central banks moved back to a more neutral policy stance.  Indeed, Australian bonds were the second best performing asset class as

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Reading time: 5 minutes With global growth slowing there is understandable concern that the decade long global bull market could be finally coming to an end.  This note suggests, however, that bear markets still remain a relatively rare occurrence, and even rarer in the absence of a US recession.   Equity markets are inherently volatile

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Reading time: 6 minutes The dust continues to settle following the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. As a new dawn breaks across the financial services industry I was keen to share a few of my insights into how investors, their advisers, and funds management businesses like BetaShares are

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Reading time: 6 minutes ETF industry continues to prosper as it becomes more mainstream The tenth annual BetaShares/Investment Trends ETF Report provides a unique snapshot of the key statistics and drivers in the Australian Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) industry, from the perspective of self-directed investors, SMSFs and financial planners. The latest report shows the ETF

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Reading time: 4 minutes Hybrid securities last year again demonstrated their ability to hold up well in the face of equity market volatility. Hybrids: impressive risk-adjusted returns The Investment Manager of our Active Hybrids Fund (ASX: HBRD) recently wrote a post discussing the strong performance of the hybrids market last year.  Indeed, the index of

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