In the Media

It’s that time of year again. Football fever is running hot, go Cats! Just as you can use your knowledge of how players and their teams have performed in the past to determine the likely victor in 2015, so too you can use price history for stocks and sectors on our market to determine where they — and therefore where the overall market — will be trading this year. Early in the season, it’s not easy to pick the champion team or even the final eight. However, knowing last year’s best increases your odds in the next. And, as the weeks unfold and your knowledge of the teams and players grows, you narrow down your short list, using probability to determine the final eight....

These days we want more control over our super, not less. However, it appears that the time for Australians to have full control over where our money is invested may be coming to an end. For a long time, I have said that it was just a matter of time before governments would tinker with our super, and there is talk at the moment that with the release of the next Federal budget, as well as more cuts, there will be changes to superannuation...

Janine Cox, an analyst at fund manager Wealth Within, says many investors assume there is only one way to manage risk: to ride out the ups and downs over the long term – time and diversification. “This is fine when the market is going up but it doesn’t give investors the confidence that they need when their investments are falling,’’ Ms Cox says. However, there is a simple way to invest with less risk by removing the problem of having to ride out or worry about the big losses, she says. Investors should consider stop-loss thresholds, where they sell their shares if the price drops to certain trigger points, Ms Cox says...

Despite all the celebrations about the success of the Medibank Private (MPL) float, to me the real winners here, in the first 12 months, are the brokers who sold the shares to their clients — short-term profit-takers who exited a few weeks ago, and of course the government, which raised more than $5 billion from it. So where does that leave you if you are holding the stock? In the short term, the prognosis for investors is not good. Reason being that statistics don’t lie, as at least 50 per cent of all floats fall below their offer price in the first 12 months...

The lead up to reporting season in Australia often sees investors bracing themselves for the bombshell that sends their shares tumbling. So, what happened this reporting season and what do you need to be aware of to prepare for the next round? Each year there are two major reporting periods for Australian Securities Exchange listed companies — February and August. You can find reporting dates on the company’s website, or contact the company’s investor centre. This way you know in advance when the important dates are for the shares you hold. It’s not until a company reports to the market that you get the chance to find out what’s going on...