morningstar

The latter half of 2021 and the majority of 2022 have been among the most challenging periods for investors in several decades. The traditional balanced portfolio, defined as one that holds 40 per cent of assets in government bonds and 60 per cent in indexed equities, is on track for the sixth-worst beginnings to a year in the last century.

The recovery from 2020’s “massive period of turbulence” hasn’t lifted all boats, and there are still plenty of bargains to be had if you know where to look. Gareth James, Morningstar’s Sydney-based equity research strategist, expects Link Administration Holdings (ASX: LNK) , for instance, to bounce back from “a tough few years” of regulatory changes…

Thematically focused funds have been the big winners in fund flows in the past three years, but most themes have turned out to be fads, new research shows. According to Morningstar’s latest ‘Global Thematic Funds Landscape Report’, over the three years through March 2021, collective assets under management in the 1,349 thematic funds more than…

The Australian stock market has long been known as the place to be for income-loving investors. Why? Because company dividend yields in Australia are amazingly high. The dividend yield for 2021 and 2022 is forecast to be 4%-5% plus franking, compared to cash rates and fixed-interest products yielding below 1%. According to Morningstar, S&P/ASX 200…

Martin Currie, the active equity specialist investment manager of Franklin Templeton, says “as the global economy returns to growth, investors looking to catch the growth wave should be looking to emerging markets.” Alastair Reynolds, Portfolio Manager of the Legg Mason Martin Currie Emerging Markets Fund, agrees and says “Take one example. In 2021, the global…

Superannuation research house Chant West, part of the Zenith Investment Consulting group, this week published its quarterly performance update on the industry fund sector. Despite the volatility experienced in March, which spanned both bond and equity markets, returns continued to surprise on the upside in March. Chant West’s research seeks to differentiate between the (at…

Morningstar’s Australian and New Zealand stock analysts have upgraded a2 Milk, a New Zealand-based ASX-listed dairy success story of recent years, to a five-star rating. A dip in price over the past month has made the stock a better buy. a2 Milk has both a geopolitical and a corporate political challenge to weather at the…

Cleanaway (ASX:CWY) is Australia’s largest garbage disposal company, providing waste, recycling, industrial and liquids services with a network of state-of-the-art facilities, transfer stations, engineered landfills, liquid treatment plants and refineries. Given what it does, it’s no surprise that Cleanaway is one of the rare companies that came out of the pandemic relatively unscathed. Pre-COVID, CWY…

Mark Arnold and Jason Orthman stood at the podium to collect three awards at last Friday (Feb 26) afternoon’s annual Morningstar funds awards, including the main prize, that of Fund Manager of the Year. But they didn’t quite scoop the pool. They were on stage four times but had to make way for T.Rowe Price…

Macquarie Investment Management is now a bigger manager than AMP Capital – and the outlook for the respective stocks appears to reflect that ranking. Macquarie Investment Management has taken AMP Capital’s crown as the largest Australian-owned manager of Australian assets, moving to $125.7 billion in assets in the year to September 2020, according to the…