Editor's Choice
Aware Super reshapes governance team, appoints chief risk officer
Aware Super has announced a leadership reshuffle, appointing a new chief risk officer amid the departure of its long-serving group executive of legal.
IFM lifts stake in Atlas Arteria to 40% after upping offer price
IFM Investors has raised its stake in Atlas Arteria from 34.5% to 38.3% in an on-market stock purchase, just a day after it raised its offer price for the toll road operator to $5.10 per security.
Zenith bolsters research, investment capabilities with new hires
Zenith has announced two senior appointments to strengthen its research and portfolio management divisions.
Regulators push for stronger stress-testing capability, resilience
The ability to remain resilient and manage liquidity pressures amid severe, multi-dimensional stress scenarios is an area of focus that APRA and ASIC want superannuation funds to improve.
Products
Expert Feed
When geopolitics becomes a portfolio risk
Geopolitics is back - again - and Australian investors can no longer treat it as distant background noise.
Does association membership still matter?
With all the changes the advice sector has experienced in recent years, such as regulatory reform and increased education and professional standards ...
Digital assets and where they stand in 2026
So far in 2026 digital assets have captured the headlines largely for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't tell the full story.
Rethinking default design in a changing market environment
The evolution underway in the US DC system highlights the value of periodically reassessing default design assumptions.
Featured Profile
Brian Redican
CHIEF ECONOMIST
NEW SOUTH WALES TREASURY CORPORATION
NEW SOUTH WALES TREASURY CORPORATION
What makes an economist an economist? TCorp chief economist Brian Redican reflects on over three decades of navigating Australia's economic cycles. Riddhima Talwani writes.
Oh dear, here we go again. May the Good Lord preserve us from experts - especially the eloquent and those in ASIC and APRA.
'Balanced'? How did we come to use a nebulous term like that. Surely all funds are balanced, but differently. Or do we mean some are 'unbalanced'? In short, the term is meaningless.
And 'conservative'! Shouldn't all life savings be invested conservatively? But, then again, what does conservative investment mean? Different things to different people, and different things according to its purpose. Advisers, of course, need to be wary of ASIC's cast-iron interpretation!
Then there's 'growth'! Growth of what? Yes, yes - of course - interpreted and bandied about by all and sundry to mean growth in market values - the quantum. And how successful has chasing growth in market values been? The All Ords today stands where it stood 14 years ago!
And what if - as should be the case with all who are retired, and arguably those saving for their retirement - you are investing to grow your Income Stream! (Then again, SuperFunds - to their shame - don't disclose Income in their 'Change in Value' reporting. Why? Because they're chasing Growth, presumably. Oh dear.)
Then there's good old 'defensive'! Defence against what? Of course: the V-word! (Volatility, that is, not Virus.) And of course, for the growth chasers (read Analysts, Strategists - aka Speculators, Gamblers), it means that proportion that you invest in non-growth assets; effectively, that proportion you don't invest. Because you're scared of volatility. (Not loss, mind you: just volatility.)
No wonder we have a whole industry in disarray! We neither agree on what we are talking about, nor agree on the meaning of the terminology we use to talk about it!
Imagine the state of the medical profession in similar state
Post script
I am, by nature, education and experience, a conservative investor. My own funds are conservatively balanced, mainly in good old-fashioned Australian 'blue chip' Industrials, other than for a small Cash reserve.
Why? Because, firstly, I like their defensive quality of generating a consistent, reliable and growing income-stream. And secondly, because I'm not prepared to stake my financial security - the security of my retirement income - on speculative capital growth. And I don't have to be concerned with the V-word.
So, ASIC, how do you rate my risk profile?