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Smart money eyes China’s next expansion cycle
Financial markets may have gone to hell in a hand basket since the Iran war started, but that hasn’t stopped one institutional investor looking beyond the current mayhem to the future drivers likely to turbocharge China’s next growth phase. While China is currently experiencing an economic funk, underpinned by structural stagnation and weak domestic demand, a lot of store is being placed in the country’s latest Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). It’s hoped that China’s progressive shift from traditional sectors like real estate to high-tech innovation, green energy, and a more robust domestic consumer market can reverse the general slowing in GDP growth of 7%-plus experienced over the last decade.A foundation for future growthAccording to a Government Work Report, China targets economic growth of 4.5% to 5% this year. While these numbers aren’t going to shoot the lights out, the report expects the next five years to not only lay a solid foundation for achieving the goal of doubling China's 2020 per capita GDP by 2035 but also serve as a source of stability for future global economic growth. Rather than being couched as overly ambitious, analysts believe China’s range reflects a more pragmatic assessment of global uncertaintie
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Middle East war: Friend or foe for investors?
Regardless of whether you believe the Trump administration’s unprovoked attack on Iran was a lurch towards peace in the region, or a distraction from [US] voter preoccupation with the Epstein files, there are material impacts for investors everywhere. While President Trump has signalled that Operation Epic Fury – now on day five - could be over in four to five weeks, markets are already speculating on the implications of it being a much more protracted affair. The declared objective is to drastically degrade Iran’s military capabilities and potentially trigger a change of regime. Iran’s initial reaction has included wide-ranging attacks on other countries in the region, including not just U.S. military bases but also civilian targets and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar. Black swan falloutThat’s not great news for investors or the capital market, both of whom want to make investment decisions based on as much certainty as possible. In anyone’s language, the U.S war with Iran is what analysts call a black swan event; rare and unpredictable with widespread, or potentially catastrophic consequences. While they’re bad for investors in the short term, these blac
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Contrarian plays as M&A wave builds
With local CEOs and foreign investors now circling a growing cadre of unloved ASX stocks – trading at widening discounts to fair value – now might be the time to play contrarian investor and buy in the hope of future spoils. The mountain of unspent capital that private equity firms are currently sitting on globally, along with Australia’s relatively weak dollar and mouth-watering valuation gaps – some exceeding 40% - has set the stage for heightened M&A activity in 2026. According to global law firm Ashurst, underlying conditions – from abundant private capital to available debt funding and sustained foreign interest – are firmly in place for a strong 12 months of M&A activity ahead.Cashed-up private equityPrivate equity buyouts rose 32% in value to US$30.5 billion across 95 deals, renewing momentum after subdued activity following the 2022 peak. Following a solid year for M&A activity in 2025 – anchored by the pending $11.7 billion deal for Qube (ASX: QBE) from Macquarie Asset Management – when 40 binding public M&A deals valued above $50 million were announced, Neil Pathak, partner and co-head of M&A at Ashurst, expects a rapid acceleration in M&A activity early 2026. Other noteworthy deals included the $12.7 billi
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US tech rout widens door for ASX outperformance: Oliver
If the Australian share market were a Melbourne Cup starter, you wouldn’t - based on previous form - put an each-way bet on it to be a top-three finisher. Let’s not be coy, the ASX200 has struggled in recent years relative to its global peers. As of February 2026, the main board of the Australian bourse has risen around 35.21% since February 2021, while the U.S. S&P 500 surged 79.41%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 nearly doubled with a gain of 97.67% over the same period. Underpinning the underperformance of Australian equities is its "old world" sector composition, - overly exposed to banks and miners - extreme sensitivity to both the Chinese economy and rising domestic interest rates. Also adding to the ASX’s laggard moniker – relative to its peers - is the exodus of market-moving large-caps into the hands of private equity.Is the tide turning?Due to insufficient capital growth, compared to high-growth international sectors like U.S. technology, the ASX has delivered a total return of approximately 119% since 2008, while the S&P 500 has risen by 305% over the same period. However, after years of being the perennial loser in the global performance stakes, there’s renewed optimism that the tide is finally turning for Aussie e
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Giving wealth creation a crack without excessive risk
With wages growth having flat-lined in Australia over the last decade, amid runaway house prices, twenty-somethings (Gen Zs), desperate to get ahead financially, can be forgiven for asking their baby-boomer parents – often accused of having the best of everything – one overarching question: ‘When investment markets resemble glorified Ponzi schemes, will we ever become financially independent like you and how do we do it?’ Any explanation that begins with, ‘well, you’ve got to pay your dues, life is earnest’ is immediately shut down. Gen Z investors want tactical solutions they can apply now, not preachy old-school rhetoric or history lessons from those they accuse of walking derrière-backwards into wealth that’s no longer within [everyone’s] reach.All or nothingSadly, the Reddit brigade," specifically through the r/WallStreetBets (WSB) community, created a false impression of easy wealth by transforming high-risk speculation into a viral, communal, and gamified experience. This movement, most evident during the 2021 GameStop short squeeze, used a unique blend of meme-driven humour, coordinated collective action, and non-conformist narratives to encourage inexperienced retail investors to put all their savings into v

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How high-frequency trading turns volatility into profit
Retail investors who feel whiplashed by the high levels of unpredictability within capital markets can lean into this volatility by utilising the largely misunderstood fine art of high-frequency trading and arbitrage. Well before artificial intelligence (AI) was even in short pants, high-frequency trading arbitrage firms were pioneering the use of big data on which they ultimately built their fortunes. What these firms do with big data is look for things to trade thousands of times a day to capture fractions of a cent multiple times. While this explains the value of high frequency, arbitrage is simply the financial equivalent of "bargain hunting" to flip a product for an immediate, near-certain profit. By doing this, Jim Simons, founder of Renaissance Technologies, was widely considered a more successful investor - in terms of average annual returns - than Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett. While Simons’ flagship Medallion Fund has achieved an astronomical 63% gross average annual return for the last 45 years, since taking over Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, Buffett has averaged a 19.8% to 22% annual return.HFT firms in AustraliaTo put the success of Simons’ high-frequency trading (HFT) model into context, $10,000 p
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Novel fund structures broaden access to private equity
As part of the alternative asset brigade, private equity (PE) was by all accounts supposed to be going gangbusters this year, but fresh insights by global alternative asset manager GCM Grosvenor suggest market conditions have been cooling for the last three years. What the Chicago-based GCM Grosvenor – which acts as the investment manager for the Pengana Private Equity Trust (ASX: PE1) - is witnessing is a significant slowdown in private equity realisations, which started back in 2022. Private equity realisations is institutional investor-speak for the fine art by which a private equity firm simply sells its ownership stake in a portfolio company or asset to generate a capital gain and return cash proceeds to its investors. While the slowdown in private equity realisation activity - within existing portfolios - coincided with interest rate rises back in 2022, what the market is yet to witness, notes GCM Grosvenor’s CIO Fred Pollock, is a valuation reset to reflect the higher cost of financing and lower valuation multiples relative to their publicly listed peers. According to Pollock, 2023 recorded the lowest U.S. exit value in the past decade, which caused “quite a bit of heartburn in the ecosystem for private equity”.
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The FS Power50: Australia’s top financial advisers
If the prospect of choosing a financial adviser appears too hard, why not start by running a ruler over the 50 advice professionals selected by their peers annually for demonstrating unwavering professionalism and providing outstanding service to their clients and wider community? Every year the Financial Standard curates votes from the advice community to come up with what’s regarded as the FS Power50. Given the popularity of these to 50 advisers, there’s no guarantee they’re actively looking to increase their client book, while others may prefer to work with certain types of clients.290 in Power50 alumniAfter 12 years of running the FS Power50 awards, there are now 290 financial advisers in the FS Power50 alumni. While some individual advisers repeatedly find themselves on this list year after year, this year there were a total of 20 changes from the previous list, including 10 new advisers named and another 10 rejoining. In light of the recent First Guardian scandal, where some advisers used their trusted position to funnel thousands of clients and their life savings into this dodgy investment fund - sometimes using aggressive sales tactics – the need to identify exemplary practitioners within the advice community i
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Where to invest: Why scepticism on AI and gold matters
With investors desperate to back certainties within highly volatile markets, it’s becoming trickier to second-guess where you should park your money for long-term growth; after all, there’s no shortage of brokers, analysts and fund managers telling you where to find wealth-creating investments. While the market is currently placing ‘big bets’ on the back of prevailing global narratives around gold, private markets, uranium, AI and big tech, data centres and energy, to name a few, it’s important to stand back before piling on in. The price at which you enter any investment will have a major impact on your overall returns, and with the gold price starting to unravel, many investors could be setting themselves up for serial disappointment. With so many of these so-called ‘hot sectors’ displaying characteristics similar to one gigantic Ponzi scheme, investors who enter last are most at risk of financial loss. Is interest in gold waning? While gold is often touted as a ‘bet on fear’, the price of the precious yellow metal has dropped well below the psychological level of US$4,000, having recently surged above US$4,380/ounce. Based on his technical analysis of the XAU/USDT chart, Damian Chmiel of Finance Magnates sugges