Assuming an easing in current global trade war concerns, it still seems likely that global long-term bond yields will rise rather than fall somewhat over the next year or so. This note examines the likely impact on fixed-income bond returns, and the degree to which the prospect of higher rates can already be “priced” into

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Working for an ETF fund manager, investors and financial advisers simply presume that I’ll always favour a simple passive index-tracking ETF.  Make no mistake, whilst I may think that indexing is the way to go most of the time because of the obvious benefits of instant diversification, lower costs, and the historical inability of the

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The end of the financial year is a time when many investors take the opportunity to review and assess their portfolios. What’s more, many set about attempting to make some positive adjustments for the financial year ahead. During this period, based upon the interaction we have with investors and their advisers, we think there are

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There’s this movement I’ve been hearing a lot about lately called FIRE, which stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early”. The acronym intrigued me and initially I was curious as to whether it was another get rich quick scheme. Far from it, FIRE is a slow burn. For those that haven’t read about it yet, I

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In an era of central-bank inflation targeting, what matters most is arguably not inflation, but inflationary pressures. If actual core inflation is contained through tighter monetary policy (as the US Federal Reserve is attempting to do now in the US), it means higher real policy rates and also higher real discount rates for all asset

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Investors fearful of major equity market declines often decide to include in their portfolios relatively “safe” assets such as cash and bonds so as to limit their downside.  The problem with this approach is that seeking safety can be costly in terms of forgone returns, especially given today’s generally low level of interest rates.  Investing

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Traditional passive index investing, whereby a fund tracks the performance of a market capitalisation based index, has been and remains an excellent way to invest, and exchange traded funds or ETFs have been an efficient and practical way for investors to access such an investment strategy. Indeed, in its annual research, which tracks the performance

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While the majority of Australian investors’ portfolios tend to be very equity-heavy, in the current economic environment there may be a case for diversifying across asset classes and increasing commodities exposure. This article looks at four of the key factors supporting a bullish view on commodities in the near-term. 1. Reflation and Releveraging Economic reflation

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In this contributed post, Chris Joye, Portfolio Manager at Coolabah Capital and the investment manager of our HBRD fund, analyses the current risk and return trade-offs of ASX shares vs. major bank hybrids. The post illustrates that in current market conditions, hybrid investors are able to obtain attractive income returns coupled with significantly less historical

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The Australian sharemarket has struggled in recent times to replicate the performance of many global peers.  One of the major drags over the past year has been the financial sector, reflecting a slowing in credit growth and new regulatory concerns stemming from the banking royal commission.  Outside of Australia’s “mega-cap” stocks, however, sharemarket performance has

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