Wealth

Insights on wealth management, investments, and personal finance.

Wealth
A plan for investing: Buy and hold v technical analysis
Whether you follow a Warren Buffett-style buy and hold approach, or adopt technical analysis, learning how to invest and devising an investment plan will not only help you crystallise your short and long-term financial goals and objectives, but also dramatically improve your ability to achieve them. It can be incredibly empowering to comprehensively review your current financial position, and if you do, you’re more likely to develop an investment plan that’s custom made for your specific requirements. Understand your current financial situationBefore devising an investment plan, it’s imperative to have an accurate picture of your cash flow, including income, regular outgoings – especially discretionary spending – and your capacity to save/invest surplus money. "Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving", is a handy piece of advice from Buffett, the world's most successful investor. Remember, all good investment plans will have one aim in common, wealth accumulation over time. Based on the "principle of compounding returns", an investment earning 10% annually doubles every 7.2 years. The right investment plan for you will depend on a myriad of factors – most importantly your age
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Denmark to raise retirement age to highest in Europe
Denmark is set to have the highest retirement age in Europe, increasing to 70 from 2040. The country’s retirement age is currently 67, and will rise to 68 in 2030 and 69 in 2035. This is tied to a 2006 welfare agreement that required the retirement age to increase by one year every five years, due to gains in life expectancy. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said last year that her government would revise the agreement, preventing any further increases in retirement age above 70. “We no longer believe in the automatic way the retirement age is raised,” she said at the time. “In our eyes, you can’t just keep saying people have to work for a year longer, so our clear statement is that the agreement must be renegotiated.” The increase to 70 passed Denmark’s parliament on Thursday with 81 votes in favour and 21 votes against. Denmark’s retirement age is rising faster than the country’s average lifespan, according to a new study by Danish trade union confederation Akademikerne. If the retirement age continues to increase at its current pace until 2070, the difference between Denmark’s retirement age and its projected life expectancy will be around two years, the study found. Other European nations like Greec
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To fix ailing super, empower those on the ground: expert
Despite being run by a highly capable pool of investment talent, industry expert Wayne Fitzgibbon - who’s held consulting roles at Mercer, Macquarie and BT - believes Australia’s super funds sector, with its implied culture of managing and understanding risk, still struggles to deliver the right retirement outcomes for its members. Fitzgibbon walked Azzet through some of the fundamental flaws entrenched within the super fund system and what’s needed to fix them. Azzet: Despite material progress to investment strategies and solutions that allow for income generation, and the mitigation of inflation and longevity risk, since the retirement income covenant was introduced in July 2022, what continues to hold the super industry back? Wayne Fitzgibbon: It’s clear who’s to blame for this failure and it’s not those at the coal face. In my view, the failure rests with politicians, well-meaning but over-zealous regulators and the inherently bureaucratic nature of the governing boards and committees of super funds. Azzet: Can you unpack some of the issues confronting the sector as you see them? WF: Starting with politics, the Coalition had sought to undermine the dominance of the industry funds since the Superannuation Gua
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Advisers, funds urged to stay out of platform swim lane
Investment advisers and industry super funds should “stick to their knitting” rather than expand into the investment platform market, an industry conference has heard. The advice came from executives with platform companies: HUB24 (ASX: HUB), Netwealth (ASX: NWL), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), and Colonial First State. They were speaking at the Morningstar Investment Conference about the drivers and sustainability of financial advice groups and industry funds investing in investment platforms. HUB24 Managing Director Andrew Alcock said that although this was not new and driven by a desire to increase revenue or reduce costs, investing in platforms was expensive and difficult. “None of us got here by not investing and it's very, very difficult to do on your own, even if you're using a third-party provider. I’m not sure it’s sustainable. Stick to your knitting,” Alcock told a panel discussion about the evolution of platforms. “I think it's going back to the past. Do what you do well, and let's work together. That's my goal. “I think you get a lowest-common denominator sort of platform functionality, if that’s where you head with some of the providers out there.” He said the fact that some advisors d
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'Not a fan': JPMorgan Chase to let clients buy Bitcoin
JPMorgan Chase will allow clients to buy Bitcoin, despite CEO Jamie Dimon’s criticism of the cryptocurrency. Dimon, a long-time Bitcoin sceptic, announced the move at JPMorgan Chase’s annual investor day. The bank also reportedly plans to offer its clients access to Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. “We are going to allow you to buy it. We’re not going to custody it. We’re going to put it in statements for clients,” said Dimon. “I don’t think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke. I defend your right to buy Bitcoin.” According to Dimon, he remains “not a fan of” Bitcoin due to concerns around the coin’s customer verification processes and ability to fund illegal activities. Dimon said in Davos last year that while he believed other cryptocurrencies could legitimately be used for valuable purchases like real estate, Bitcoin “does nothing”. “My personal advice would be ‘don’t get involved’,” he said. Morgan Stanley became the first major Wall Street bank to offer Bitcoin ETFs to certain clients in August. Eligible clients must have a net worth of at least US$1.5 million and an aggressive risk tolerance, and would be allowed to buy shares in Bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity. Goldman Sachs also h

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SBS, ABC gender pay gap revealed for the first time
Gender pay gaps at the ABC and SBS have been revealed for the first time through newly published data. The wage data for the Commonwealth public sector, spanning 100 employers, found that while ABC was ahead of the national average it was still falling behind other news outlets, including SBS. Men at the ABC were paid nearly 10% more than women, on median total remuneration. In comparison to other news outlets and media companies, News Limited sits at 5.6%, Australian Associated Press is 5.8%, Network Ten 6.5% and The Age lands at 7%. Faring worse were Nine’s 15.3%, Seven West Media at 11.5%, Radio 2GB at 12.7% and Win Corporation at 14%. Conversely, The Guardian sits at a negative of -2.5%, a pay gap actually in favour of women and SBS’s was 1.9%. These numbers demonstrate that Commonwealth public sector employers' pay gaps were still ahead of the private sector in a serious way, with 45% of all Commonwealth public sector employers having pay gaps that still fell within the target range (+/-5%), compared with 31% in the private sector. Additionally, Australia Post, the tax office, the Reserve Bank and the federal police were all among those in the sector to have gender pay gap data published publicly for the
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Australians more loyal to wealth advisers: EY report
Australian investors are more willing to retain their wealth providers than their peers overseas, according to a new report from one of the world’s largest professional services firms. This signals deeper trust between Australian local investors and their primary wealth advisers, EY said in its 2025 EY Global Wealth Research Report. EY said 18% of Australian respondents to a survey said they were likely to change their primary wealth provider within the next three years, well below the global average of 29%. But rising expectations were pushing wealth managers to modernise and personalise their services, the firm said in the sixth edition of the report. “Our survey suggests that Australian investors continue to value strong relationships with their wealth managers and advisers,” EY Regional Wealth and Asset Management Leader Oceania Rita Da Silva said in a media release. She said Australia’s robust regulatory guardrails and work to build trust following the Financial Services Royal Commission had gone a long way to creating an environment where investors were less likely to be considering a shift to primary providers. But it was essential that wealth managers kept pace with evolving client expectations in the fac
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National pension giants seek $3m super tax indexation
The two biggest funds in Australia’s A$4.2 trillion (US$2.7 trillion) superannuation industry have reportedly called on the Government to index to inflation a proposed new tax on accounts with more than $3 million. AustralianSuper and the Australian Retirement Trust, which manage and invest a combined $665 billion, privately lobbied Treasurer Jim Chalmers to tie the tax hikes to inflation to avoid instability and harming confidence, according to the Australian Financial Review newspaper. AustralianSuper is broadly supportive of the policy but has repeatedly asked the Labor Government to index it, while Australian Retirement Trust (ART) also met Chalmers before the 3 May election and raised similar concerns, the AFR reported. Azzet contacted the Treasurer’s office for comment and had received no response at the time of writing while the two funds did not comment specifically on their private lobbying. AustralianSuper, which manages $365 billion for 3.5 million member, has said in the past that indexation of the threshold at which the measure applied would lead to greater certainty and promote stability and confidence in the system. “While we remain of the view that the $3 million threshold should be indexed, in the a
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Fund manager sees CBA share price rally ending soon
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) is not far from the point where the “tsunami” of buying that has driven it to “crazy” levels will disappear, according to a leading fund manager. Solaris Investment Management Chief Investment Officer Michael Bell said the factors that had driven the price of Australia’s largest company included switching from United States and Chinese stocks to the “big liquid names” in Australia. He said money had also transitioned away from fund managers that had performed poorly with no banks in their portfolios to fund managers that owned banks and into passive investment portfolios that included CBA. Of the A$25 billion that investors received from takeovers of Australian-listed companies in the last 12 months, about $20 billion was reinvested across the market, including in banks. “So we’ve had this tsunami of buying across CBA and some of the larger stocks in our market and it’s actually led to a capitulation amongst the big super funds and some funds managers,” Bell told the Morningstar Investment Conference. “The big super funds…can’t take the risk associated with the position that some of the fund managers have got so they are buying CBA shares themselves, either via synthetics or