There are some angry retirees around Australia right now. Labor’s plan to rescind franking credits from those who haven’t paid tax has seen impassioned speeches at public hearings, angry letters to newspapers, and media profiles where the aggrieved quote how much they’ll lose from the changes. It all must be very confronting if you’re suddenly […]
With some things in life, a good start is everything. Take the 100-meter sprint, the whole race is over in 10 seconds or less. The importance of getting out of the blocks quickly to ensure success can’t be understated. In the 100-metre sprint’s extended athletic cousin, the marathon, a bad start, while annoying, must be […]
Returns are in for last year and for equities they weren’t the best. In fact, for equities they were the worst in seven years. That’s the importance of being diversified. Fixed interest, listed real estate and cash helped smooth out the sharemarket drag of the final quarter. There was one country where the sharemarket knocked […]
Christmas is the time of year when shopping cranks up, people wind down and financial markets exist in a mostly positive slumber. You don’t expect much bad to occur in financial markets during December. For the most part, over the last 30-something years, December has been the month where you’d receive a little extra in […]
Economic Overview Global equities posted sharp declines in the December quarter, delivering their worst yearly performance in seven years largely on the back of the final three months. The major concerns were global trade, slowing economic growth and the US Federal Reserve’s plans for further interest rate rises. Government bond yields generally fell (prices rose), […]