Self-managed super fund (SMSF) trustees are ultimately required to take on many responsibilities. From being the decision point for all fund actions, to managing the fund prudently for the benefit of all fund members – all while being aware that they, as members, will not have access to any special compensation schemes or access to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) if something goes wrong. It’s a lot to take on, and a financial adviser can help trustees understand how both superannuation and tax law may apply in their circumstances.

Investment bonds are often considered an old fashioned investment option, and as a savings vehicle they can be overlooked by financial advisers and their clients. But the reality is that investment bonds have a number of advantages that make them well worth a closer look.

The Government’s Quality of Advice Review is one of the most important financial services policy reviews to be held in recent years. It will consider improvements to the regulatory framework to reduce complexity and better enable accessible and affordable advice for consumers, so they can access quality advice when they need it and in a form they want. 

Included in the Review’s terms of reference is consideration of the opportunities for digital advice to address some of the industry’s impediments to delivering scaled and affordable advice. 

• The cash out re-contribution strategy;
• Potential benefits; and
• Important points to consider before recommending the strategy. 

A person’s superannuation savings are accumulated at the individual level. While you can own an investment property, shares, or have a joint bank account with another person, your superannuation is unique in a sense that it is your benefit only, even if you can ultimately pass it on, in some cases tax-free, to a dependant beneficiary.

Global credit can be a useful diversifying asset class for Australian investors. It can offer higher income than cash, with less risk than shares, while bringing diversification benefits that can reduce overall portfolio risk.

The long-term performance of different asset classes' historical risk and return trade-off is shown in Chart 1. Global credit sectors have an intermediate risk-return profile through different investment cycles.

Chart 1: Historical Annualised Return vs. Historical Risk 

The relationship of earnings acceleration to outperformance has had only limited empirical studies. In fact, most studies focus on the US market, and we believe our research is one of the first to examine earnings acceleration in a global universe, by region and sector.  

Earnings acceleration refers to the change in the velocity of growth in a company’s earnings. The exact point can be subjective, but it fundamentally refers to the stage when a company’s earnings growth experiences an inflection point on a sustainably upward path.

One of the fundamental requirements for applying capital gains tax (CGT) concessions is the asset being sold must be ‘active’ and this is not always as easy or straight-forward as it sounds.

The basic conditions that must be satisfied to access small business CGT concessions are that the taxpayer must either have an aggregated turnover of less than $2 million or aggregated net assets with a value not exceeding $6 million, with extra requirements when selling shares in a company. 

The financial advice industry is undergoing a major transformation and financial advisers face an increasing number of constraints on their time.

Current risk and compliance requirements are a result of numerous inquiries into the quality of advice provided by the financial planning industry and are designed to protect consumers, something of which the industry as a whole is supportive of. 

Factor investing, also known as smart beta, has become increasingly popular as investors realise they can harvest factor-driven excess returns and diversification over the market capitalisation-weighted benchmark through a simple, transparent, and rules-based approach.