Latest Financial Planning News

Hot Issues
Women still outpacing men in SMSF establishments
Economic and market outlook for 2025: Global summary
Preparing to lodge quarterly January TBAR
How to overcome your investment fears
Navigating the outcome of the U.S. election
Divorce doesn’t alter contribution rules
$3m super tax officially abandoned for this year
Top 20 Most Watched Christmas Movies ever - pre covid
A Unique Advent Calendar
ATO reviewing all new SMSF registrations to stop illegal early access
Compliance documents crucial for SMSFs
Investment and economic outlook, October 2024
Leaving super to an estate makes more tax sense, says expert
Be clear on TBA pension impact
Caregiving can have a retirement sting
The biggest assets growth areas for SMSFs
20 Years of Silicon Valley Trends: 2004 - 2024 Insights
Investment and economic outlook, September 2024
Economic slowdown drives mixed reporting season
ATO stats show continued growth in SMSF sector
What are the government’s intentions with negative gearing?
A new day for Federal Reserve policy
Age pension fails to meet retirement needs
ASIC extends reportable situations relief and personal advice record-keeping requirements
The Leaders Who Refused to Step Down 1939 - 2024
ATO encourages trustees to use voluntary disclosure service
Beware of terminal illness payout time frame
Capital losses can help reduce NALI
Investment and economic outlook, August 2024
What the Reserve Bank’s rates stance means for property borrowers
How investing regularly can propel your returns
Super sector in ASIC’s sights
Most Popular Operating Systems 1999 - 2022
Treasurer unveils design details for payday super
Articles archive
Quarter 3 July - September 2024
Quarter 2 April - June 2024
Quarter 1 January - March 2024
Quarter 4 October - December 2023
Quarter 3 July - September 2023
Quarter 2 April - June 2023
Quarter 1 January - March 2023
Quarter 4 October - December 2022
Quarter 3 July - September 2022
Quarter 2 April - June 2022
Quarter 1 January - March 2022
Quarter 4 October - December 2021
Quarter 3 July - September 2021
Quarter 2 April - June 2021
Quarter 1 January - March 2021
Quarter 4 October - December 2020
Quarter 3 July - September 2020
Quarter 2 April - June 2020
Quarter 1 January - March 2020
Quarter 4 October - December 2019
Quarter 3 July - September 2019
Quarter 2 April - June 2019
Quarter 1 January - March 2019
Quarter 4 October - December 2018
Quarter 3 July - September 2018
Quarter 2 April - June 2018
Quarter 1 January - March 2018
Quarter 4 October - December 2017
Quarter 3 July - September 2017
Quarter 2 April - June 2017
Quarter 1 January - March 2017
Quarter 4 October - December 2016
Quarter 3 July - September 2016
Quarter 2 April - June 2016
Quarter 1 January - March 2016
Quarter 4 October - December 2015
Quarter 3 July - September 2015
Quarter 2 April - June 2015
Quarter 1 January - March 2015
Quarter 4 October - December 2014
Quarter 3 July - September 2014
Quarter 2 April - June 2014
Quarter 1 January - March 2014
Quarter 4 October - December 2013
Quarter 3 July - September 2013
Quarter 2 April - June 2013
Quarter 1 January - March 2013
Quarter 4 October - December 2012
Quarter 3 July - September 2012
Quarter 2 April - June 2012
Quarter 1 January - March 2012
Quarter 4 October - December 2011
Quarter 3 July - September 2011
Quarter 2 April - June 2011
Quarter 1 January - March 2011
Quarter 4 October - December 2010
Quarter 3 July - September 2010
Quarter 2 April - June 2010
Quarter 1 January - March 2010
Quarter 4 October - December 2009
Quarter 3 July - September 2009
Quarter 2 April - June 2009
Quarter 1 January - March 2009
Quarter 4 October - December 2008
Quarter 3 July - September 2008
Quarter 2 April - June 2008
Quarter 1 January - March 2008
Quarter 4 October - December 2007
Quarter 3 July - September 2007
Quarter 2 April - June 2007
Quarter 1 January - March 2007
Quarter 4 October - December 2006
Quarter 1 of 2018
Articles
Why your retirement intentions are critical
Plans for study into elder abuse
Our website is really our digital office.
Dissecting the downsizer contribution
The Goldilocks effect - Economic and market update 4Q 17
Rates, inflation and yield - five graphs to help make sense of it all
Australia. All you need to know to be the expert.
Potential pension minefields
Confusion lingers over post-death insurance
Non-lodgement numbers slashed, 30,000 funds still in ATO’s sights
Business confidence hits 5-month high: NAB
New Year resolutions, New Year strategies
How will downsizer contributions work for SMSFs?
Where Australia is at. Our leading indicators.
‘Read the tea leaves,’ brace for cryptocurrency regulation, advisers told
Power of retiree super dollars
Beyond share prices
Financial advice is the leading trigger to review insurance inside Super
Opinion – 2018 to be the year of the machine
Rising risks to the status quo
UPDATE: Australia's vital statistics
As share prices rise, the risk-return trade-off gets tricky
Technical expert flags top 3 traps with CGT relief
Become a better investor through your holiday reading
Australia's vital statistics
Made in Albania? How globalisation is creating challenges for Chinese policymakers
Our Advent calendar for 2017
Rising risks to the status quo

The financial markets' low volatility underscores investors' conviction that the long-term global economic trends of modest growth and tepid inflation will also define shorter-term cycles. But risks lie in mistaking the trend for the cycle.



       


 


The most pronounced risk in our 2018 outlook is that already tight global labor markets will grow tighter, finally leading to a cyclical uptick in inflation. A wage or inflation spike in 2018 could lead markets to anticipate a more aggressive normalization from historically low interest rates just as central banks are either normalizing monetary policy or contemplating doing so, thereby producing a market-rattling shock.


Global investment outlook: Higher risks, lower returns
For 2018 and beyond, our investment outlook is modest, at best. Elevated valuations, low volatility, and secularly low interest rates are unlikely to be allies for robust financial market returns over the next five years. Downside risks are more elevated in the equity market than in the bond market.


In our view, the solution to this challenge is not shiny new objects or aggressive tactical shifts. Rather, our market outlook underscores the need for investors to remain disciplined and globally diversified, armed with reasonable return expectations and low-cost strategies.


What follows is a brief overview of our economic and investment outlook for 2018.


Economic growth: Unemployment, not growth, is the key
We expect economic growth in developed markets to remain moderate in 2018, while strong emerging-market growth should soften a bit. Yet investors should pay more attention to low unemployment rates than GDP growth at this stage of the cycle for prospects of either higher spending for capital expenditures or wage pressures. We see low unemployment rates across many economies declining further. Improving fundamentals in the United States and Europe should help offset weakness in the United Kingdom and Japan. China's ongoing efforts to rebalance from a capital-intensive exporter to a more consumer-based economy remains a risk, as does the need for structural business-model adjustments across emerging-market economies. We do not anticipate a Chinese "hard landing" in 2018, but the Chinese economy should decelerate.


Inflation: Secularly low, but cyclically rising
Previous Vanguard outlooks have rightly anticipated that the secular forces of globalization and technological disruption would make achieving 2% inflation in the United States, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere more difficult. Our trend view holds, but the cycle may differ.


In 2018, the growing impact of cyclical factors such as tightening labor markets, stable and broader global growth, and a potential nadir in commodity prices is likely to push global inflation higher from cyclical lows. The relationship between lower unemployment rates and higher wages, pronounced dead by some, should begin to re-emerge in 2018, beginning in the United States.


Monetary policy: The end of an era
The risk in 2018 is that a higher-than-expected bounce in wages—at a point when 80% of major economies (weighted by output) are at full employment—may lead markets to price in a more aggressive path or pace of global monetary policy normalization. The most likely candidate is in the United States, where the Federal Reserve is expecting to raise rates to 2% by the end of 2018, a more rapid pace than anticipated by the bond market. The European Central Bank is probably two years away from raising rates or tapering bond purchases, although a cyclical bounce may lead to a market surprise. Overall, the chance of unexpected shocks to the economy during this tightening phase is high, as is the chance that balance-sheet shrinkage will have an unpredictable impact on asset prices.


Investment outlook: A lower orbit
The sky is not falling, but our market outlook has dimmed. Since the depths of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, Vanguard's long-term outlook for the global stock and bond markets has gradually become more cautious—evolving from bullish in 2010 to formative in 2012 to guarded in 2017—as market returns have risen with (and even exceeded) improving fundamentals. Although we are hard-pressed to find compelling evidence of financial bubbles, risk premiums for many asset classes appear slim. The market's efficient frontier of expected returns for a unit of portfolio risk now hovers in a lower orbit.


Based on our "fair-value" stock valuation metrics, the medium-run outlook for global equities has deteriorated a bit and is now centered in the 4 %–6% range. Expected returns for the U.S. stock market are lower than those for international markets, underscoring the benefits of global equity strategies in the face of lower expected returns.


And despite the risk for a short-term acceleration in the pace of monetary policy normalization, the risk of a material rise in long-term interest rates remains modest. For example, our fair-value estimate for the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield remains centered near 2.5% in 2018. Overall, the risk of a correction for equities and other high-beta assets is projected to be considerably higher than for high-quality fixed income portfolios; balanced portfolios are expected to stunt a rise in return volatility.


 


By Robin Bowerman
​29 November 2017
www.vanguard.com.au




24th-January-2018