Kuan Tian on Superannuation, Shares, Investments and Tax

The following links are to videos by Kuan Tian.

How to make money in the stock market consistently! Index fund investing explained for beginners.

In this video Kuan backs index funds. He gives examples of VAS for Australia stocks, IVV for US stocks and IOO for the largest international companies.

Ranking the 10 biggest super funds | BEST super fund for index investing? (2023)

What is the best Australian Shares ETF for 2023? (Comparing VAS, A200, IOZ and more!)

Recommends A200, VAS and IOZ.

The ATO is CRACKING DOWN on stock and ETF investors. Stay safe with these tax tips.

Wow, I had no idea how much more work was involved with ETFs when preparing a tax return.

Top 3 ASX stock brokers to invest in Australian shares

Hassle-Free Investing: How to build a 100% automated portfolio for Australians.

This Common Home Loan Mistake Could Cost You $100,000 in Extra Tax

Be careful with redraw facilities, compared to offset accounts, as it could come with a big tax bill if you later rent your house out.

The SMARTEST Ways to Invest $2,000 Right Now in Australia! (2K Sub Special)

Why transition to retirement (TTR) pension strategies are so lucrative | Superannuation in Australia

Ultimate Guide to REDUCING TAX with your superannuation

How to reduce your tax with a personal super contribution. EVERY AUSTRALIAN CAN DO THIS!

How anyone can legally pay NO TAX in Australia (requires planning)

Basically, you don't pay tax on income from your super when it's in pension phase

How wealthy Australians exploit investment properties to pay less tax.

The negative gearing and CGT loop hole.

Australia's simplest Portfolio (VAS + VGS) - What they're not telling you

Invest in Super first, then make sure you also have a diversified portfolio with defensive investments. VGS does not cover emerging markets either. A200 and IOZ both have lower fees than VAS. So, keep the majority of the portfolio in Super, the portion outside Super should be diversified across stocks, the stock component should include access to the fast growing emerging markets and VAS should probably be replaced by A200 because of the lower management fees.

Gerard Minack doesn't seem optimistic

In The bear is back: A cautionary tale of global gloom Patrick Commins interviews former Morgan Stanley analyst Gerard Minack about the state of the global economy and financial markets. Minack seems to be of the view that the Australian dollar hasn't finished falling and iron ore prices will halve. He's suggesting bonds might offer the better medium term investment.

Fairfax: So it's worth owning bonds, not equities this year? With bond prices sky high, will there be a day of reckoning as interest rates normalise?

GM: I can't see a day of reckoning any time soon. The forces of disinflation still have the upper hand. Last year, in terms of equities, certainly the S&P was the stand-out performer, but you'd have been much better off holding a 30-year bond in the States. It would have given you a better return.

You can't look for bonds to give you the same returns as the past couple of years, or the past 30 years, but as we saw in Japan for over a decade, there's a time to own bonds not because of what they were but because of what they weren't: they weren't things that were going down. Investors want a premium return to own a riskier asset. If bonds are flat this year in price terms you'll get a pick-up of 2 or 3 per cent, which would imply you need to expect 6 or 7 per cent from equities just to compensate, and if you can't see 6 or 7 per cent, you should be in bonds or something safe like cash.

Minack also seems to be a Euro sceptic.

Fairfax: So the biggest risks are in Europe?

GM: Yep. The problem is the next crisis will not be in the periphery and it will not be in the banks; it will be economic and it will be in the core.

The big problem is the internal competitive imbalances in Europe. The problem's not [that] the euro is too high against the dollar, it's not that the euro is too high against the yen. The problem is that the French franc is too high against the deutschemark, and Mr Draghi can't fix that. From the resulting economic stress you're getting political blowback. You're getting fringe parties flourishing everywhere. There are whole landmines of elections coming up in the next 18 months, any one of which could throw up a result that could get the crisis back as front page news.

Fairfax: So you still don't believe the euro can survive?

GM: That's still the case. You can't restore your competitiveness in a fixed-exchange-rate regime.

The solution is simple, and it's what the periphery has done: it's called having a depression. It's 20 per cent unemployment and large nominal wage cuts. The trouble is that the small economies can be bossed around, but you can't see the French taking the same medicine.

But what's quite clear is they will not take the action pro-actively. Mr Draghi bought them time with "whatever it takes", but they sat back and twiddled their thumbs. They need the cattle prod of crisis to get them to react.

I actually think that the next crisis – which is inevitable over a two or three-year horizon – will be a great buying opportunity for euro equities because they will get very cheap.

Minack thinks the next downturn is still a little way off. But he's not confident that the world will whether it well.

Now, we've shot a lot of bullets in the global financial crisis and the next downturn I think will reveal most other people are turning Japanese. Unfortunately the one policy that blindingly obviously works is fiscal policy, but it's very unlikely to be doable in the next downturn; in the US due to congressional gridlock, and it will be disabled in Europe because they won't have a centralised fiscal authority.

So you're left response-less when you enter the next downturn, with monetary policy that is ineffectual, unconventional monetary policy that's just embroidery, and very close to deflation.

Making a million dollars and also ETFs

A bit of investment advice:

Scott Phillips: How to make a million in shares
John Collett: ETFs have a downside but can widen your exposure

America's fascination with often flawed financial advice

In Saving on lattes will not make you rich the Economist interviews Helaine Olen, author of "Pound Foolish" on  the deeply flawed financial advice Americans receive.

Investing in a post GFC world

Patrick Commins has given several tips on investing in Survive the new world disorder:

Economic conditions have changed so drastically that what once was viewed as common sense now threatens your financial wellbeing. Patrick Commins examines strategies to thrive.

1. Get real on returns, part I
2. Get real on returns, part II
3. Understand volatility
4. Forget 'set and forget'
5. Think global
6. Get in touch with your emotions