Most broad-based equity indices around the world predominately comprise mature, old-world industrial businesses, highly geared companies including banks, low quality commodity-based businesses, capital intensive businesses and speculative stocks. For many of these companies the long-term return on capital and organic revenue growth outlook is modest at best. This low-quality equity... Show More
Alex Leyland, Portfolio Manager at Leyland Asset Management. says that the economy is transitioning away from mining as smoothly as could be expected. “People are finding jobs, new car sales are up, everything seems to be ok.” Despite this, wage growth remains at recession levels and confidence remains low. In... Show More
The simplest way to add value through asset allocation is to be in the right asset class at the right point in the economic and business cycle. Which is all well and good if you have a crystal ball – unfortunately no-one does. Given current levels of overall share market... Show More
It is a simple and irrefutable fact that, once you subtract their often hefty fees, the average of all actively managed funds’ returns must be less than the market return. Keep your fees low, then, and you will inevitably do better than average. Show More
We take a look at the recent SPIVA AUS/US 2014 scorecard on Active Managers vs their relevant benchmark indices. The results show that only 1 in 4-5 managers outperform their benchmark index. This suggests there is a huge amount of money that is invested with managers, paying fees, when the... Show More
Morgan Stanley has released a note saying that one of the main reasons it’s tough to beat the S&P is that when new stocks are added to the index they tend to be massive outperformers. “The earnings growth of the companies added to the index was not only much superior... Show More
Ignore the index and focus on these five quality value stocks instead. The Australian stock market has gone nowhere since September last year; it's a classic sideways market that resulted after it moved above fair value in early 2013. Unlike 2012 - the last time the market showed value -... Show More