Investors at year-end are inclined to reflect on the 12 months gone and muse on what the coming year might bring. Aware of this appetite for speculation, the media tends to feed it with forecasts. These articles can be fun to read, but are even more so a year later. In January 2017, for instance, one media outlet said Wall Street strategists were more bearish on equities than they had been for any year since 2005. The consensus forecast for the S&P 500 was for a gain in 2017 of about 4%. Individual forecasts from the 16 analysts quoted by…

Investing is a tough deal. Our noggins aren’t truly equipped to deal with all the variables, complexities and stimuli of the modern investment landscape. While it should be simple. Save. Stay liquid. Stay diversified. Stay disciplined. Australian saving rates are back to plumbing 10-year lows. For many the house is the savings vehicle. While household debt to income is at 190%. No savings. No balance. No liquidity. No discipline. All those houses connected to all that debt is a significant danger. Yet most of the bubble and crash talk for 2017 has been how it’s too late to invest in…

The financial media is drawn to catchphrases –acronyms and buzzwords that can be sold as the new thing. ‘FAANG’ (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) is the latest of these. But does this constitute an investment strategy? For journalists, commentators and marketers, acronyms like FAANG are useful. They fit easily into headlines and they appeal to a feeling among some investors that their portfolios should match the ‘zeitgeist’ or spirit of the age But as we’ll see, investment trends tend to come and go. This is not to downplay the transformative nature of new technologies and the possibilities they present.…