In the past, portfolio theory was fairly simple. To work out how much you should allocate to growth-based assets, you simply used the following formula:

Back in 1987, Warren Buffet made the following statement in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders: ‘Our basic principle is that if you want to shoot rare, fast-moving elephants, you should always carry a loaded gun’

Members of superannuation funds aren’t entitled to vote on who the directors are. In fact, as a member, do you have a say on anything to do with your superannuation company? Who runs it; how it is run; the direction in the organisation is headed?

Centrelink’s changes to the Age Pension assets test limit in January 2017 cut off access to the Age Pension for many retirees, when the maximum value of assets owned to obtain the age pension was reduced.

The media has been a flurry recently about Labor’s proposed changes to franking credits. There has been public outrage over this, and the sad reality is that this policy will have little impact on the uber-rich; those most affected will likely be the same group of people who lost their age pension a few years back when the asset test limit was changed. You can start to understand why retirees are fed up.

I recently reviewed Media Super’s Annual Report after reading a media article that reported them purchasing a 429-year-old violin as an investment. I thought this was an odd investment for a regulated super fund. Was this a responsible decision given the opaque market of collectables and the high transactional costs associated with such investments? And, how did this get past APRA? It triggered me to investigate Media Super’s investment policy.

There have recently been many articles in the media regarding changing property prices. Unlike shares, which can be accurately tracked day-to-day, property is historically an opaque market with less visibility on price movements. However, over the past few years computers with sophisticated programming have been able to track property markets more accurately and provide an increasing level of transparency.

I often like to read ‘peculiar’ books that give me some insights into different ways of thinking. I recently came across a book review in The Monocle Minute. It inspired me to buy the book:

It seems like a simple enough question. If you had a balance investment option in your super, would you choose a 7% or 12% return? Yet, before you decide it’s a no-brainer, it’s worth probing a little deeper into what could cause this 5% variance, as the reporting returns are not standardised.

Around $2.5 billion has reportedly flowed into the industry super fund Hostplus in recent times. This influx of funds has largely been on the back of media commentators promoting Hostplus, in particular its Hostplus Index Balanced Fund.