Roger Montgomery’s insights into what 2017 holds for the investing world. An update on the state of residential property and finding value in shares that have recently suffered price falls. If you are concerned about your returns, you should brace for an end of the residential construction boom. You should also be very cautious about the excessive prices of high-yielding stocks (those paying dividends that are unlikely to grow), and you should be most enthusiastic about high-quality mid cap and small cap stocks that have been punished recently with share price declines of up to 50%. Let’s start with property… Courtesy of UBS and the RLB Crane Index, we recently learned that the residential crane count in Australia skyrocketed by 313% between September 2013 and September 2016. There were more residential construction cranes along the east coast of Australia than across New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto and Calgary combined. Property doyens are selli
A Case Study by Melanie Dunn answering some important questions surrounding the changes being made to Australia’s superannuation system. Our recent article set the scene for how SMSFs will need to re-assess their pensions under the $1.6 million pension cap. The comments and questions received highlight the complexity of this reform for SMSF trustees. To further decode the changes, we found there are four key questions regarding these reforms: How will member accounts be tracked from 1 July 2017? Can the fund employ a segregated assets strategy? Is the fund eligible to preserve capital gains on some or all fund assets? How is the capital gains tax relief applied? To demonstrate the key points, we have developed the following case study: Case study – Fred and Wilma’s SMSF Fred, aged 68, and Wilma, aged 69, are both fully retired and, as at 7 December 2016, have: An account-based pension in the SMSF in Fred’s name valued at $1.2 million. An account-based pension i