A Financial Journalist Breaks Ranks

On occasion a financial journalist will break ranks and spill the beans on why they write articles they know offer zero value to their readers.

Michael Pascoe is one of Australia’s most experienced and respected finance journalists. For many years, he hosted the Nine Network’s Sunday morning business program. Now, well into his 60s, he has admitted that most daily financial markets reports are rubbish and that for journalists, they are a meaningless grind. (4 mins read)

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Temperament Beats IQ

Temperament is critical to successful investing because markets persistently test investor discipline with long periods of volatile and/or poor performance. Warren Buffett recognised this when he said people frequently make the mistake of feeling they have do “do something” when markets are volatile.

A friend of Stewart Partners, Larry Swedroe, has more. (5 mins).

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The World is not so bad

It only takes a few minutes of watching the news to get the feeling that the world is heading into a tailspin.

Endless images of natural disasters, car crashes, and Royal Commissions into the ethically bankrupt fill the airwaves on a daily basis. It’s upsetting – but also certainly captivating for the average viewer.

This article talks about the challenge and benefits of thinking like an optimist rather than a pessimist, and provides some real data on how the world continues to drastically improve in slow and incremental ways to demonstrate that optimists aren’t self-deluded after all (5 mins read).

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11 Sketches that Illustrate the Path to Financial Happiness

New York Times columnist, author and financial planner Carl Richards has been a long-time friend of Stewart Partners and made a career out of exposing and analysing what he calls the “behaviour gap” — the gap between what you should do with your money and what you actually do.

Richards has boiled down his wisdom on wealth and happiness into a dozen of his sketches that he’s allowed us to share with you. Please enjoy (2 mins read)

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A Formula for Success through Major Global Events

Investing is a long-term rewarding endeavour. Indeed, people will spend decades pursuing their financial goals. But being an investor can sometimes be complicated, challenging, frustrating, and sometimes frightening.

This article considers how our response to major events has a great impact on the outcomes we experience than the event itself, and how markets have responded to six major global events over the past 30 years (6 mins read).

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Your Digital Legacy

Once upon a time our lives were dominated by trips to the bank, the post office, call waiting and Kodak stores (remember the excitement of the 1 hour turnaround!).  However today, more of our lives and activity is spent online, with a resulting large digital footprint.

But what happens to our digital footprint if we lose mental capacity or die?   What will be your digital legacy and how will your loved ones deal with it?

With input from our legal panel of estate planning lawyers, this article considers how you should approach and plan for your digital legacy as part of your estate planning. (4 mins)

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The Journey of Owning Shares

Investing in shares can be a rollercoaster experience.  The equity markets are inherently volatile, but the reward is higher investment returns over time.  This article examines the evidence of what the journey of investing in shares looks like, and over what timeframes investors can reasonably expect to be rewarded for investing in equity markets.  (5 min read) 

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