Summary: The simple rule for building wealth is to spend less than you earn and invest the difference wisely. You can progress through the first four stages of financial freedom by mastering the earning and spending (or saving) elements of this equation. But to progress beyond that to financial independence you need to develop your investing capabilities.

I agree with the Financial Mentor that successful long-term investing is about process (risk management, margins of safety, timing, strategy, finding your niche) rather than product. It's also about not procrastinating, learning from mistakes early or with little at risk, operating within your current level of knowledge, differentiating between investment and speculation (i.e. patience and discipline not greed, FOMO and over-trading), minimising unnecessary fees, having liquid funds to take advantage of opportunities, automating whatever makes sense (contributions, reinvestment, passive investments, tax), and expending at least a few hours a month monitoring the right information to make decisions.

In this post, I will collate the best articles discussing these aspects of wise investing. But this will be a work-in-progress for a long time as there is always more one can learn about optimising investing and the range of opportunities is always changing (e.g. P2P lending, exchange-traded products, LICs available, roboinvesting platforms, etc).

However, I think it is also possible to piggy-back off the knowledge and judgement of successful investors if you do so selectively within your current level of knowledge and capacity to properly manage. At the front end of this post, I will maintain an updated list of investments with my current recommendations, including investment types, products or platforms I advise against.

Details:

1. My current list of recommended investment opportunities for Australians

As of Mar 2018:

- Salary-sacrificing or transfers into superannuation: 15 to 95% of portfolio depending on how close you are to age 60 which is the age of access and also when future returns become tax-free (regardless of age tax is payable on income earned outside of super). Superannuation is currently the best place for most retirement-focused investing and may even be useful for saving for a house if the proposed First Home Super Saver Scheme becomes law and is worthwhile.
- Note that in the next few decades I expect the government will tax superannuation post-retirement and require it to be used more effectively as a substitute for the aged pension. So young people should retain significant savings outside of super.
- If you don't have enough return-generating assets to live off without the age pension, then you need to consider owning the home you live in (excluded from assets test) and meeting the asset and income limits. You may wish to consider an annuity if interest rates are high enough at the time. But also remember that the aged pension is itself a hugely valuable, defensive annuity even if you just use it as a safety net should your investments perform terribly.
- Currently I have all of my superannuation in one of the largest, low-fee, reliably-performing industry super funds: AustralianSuper. I keep it in the low-fee, diversified returns of the Balanced option (see the link below for details on why I choose this). I do not switch investment options or try and time the market in super. I salary-sacrifice around $10,000 in most years. It currently forms about 15% of my portfolio.
See: > Start organising your superannuation in the most optimal way

- RateSetter Australia: 10 to 50% of portfolio in 5 year market accepting a minimum rate of 8.8% (wait if you have to, 5 year rates can still occasionally get as high as 9.5%).
- Currently ~40% of my portfolio. It has been as high as 55% but I have gradually scaled back as I've invested more in LICs.
- Note that you need to occasionally monitor the provision fund coverage level, any significant rise in bad debts, and any major changes in who is being lent to and on what terms, if investing over 20% of your portfolio. My approach would be to reduce my investments if worried about loan defaults not being covered in the near term.
See: > Understand the risks versus returns of P2P lending with Ratesetter Australia

- Stockspot (or other passive roboinvesting): 0 to 30% of portfolio if an unsophisticated investor, very time-poor, or contributing regularly and wanting to save on brokerage, as the annual fee is around 0.7%. The ETFs Stockspot uses can be invested in directly for less than 0.4% annually if you do so infrequently in large amounts but you'd have to manage rebalancing and tax details yourself.
- Instead of roboinvesting the better option is to buy Vanguard diversified portfolios like VDHG or VDGR via your online broker (see below).
- Roboinvesting is currently 0% of my portfolio but I used Stockspot for two years so I could evaluate it.

- Passive ETFs (including Vanguard diversified portfolios): 5 to 60%. If seeking lower fees and more control than roboinvesting, you could choose the specific ETFs and mix from the Stockspot table and detailed report or comparison page to best suit your portfolio needs. But most people are best off simply selecting the most appropriate Vanguard diversified portfolio of ETFs which charge only 0.27%.
- Currently 0% of my portfolio as I use LICs for passive-like investing but have the time and knowledge to extract higher returns. But from Dec 2017 I will be gradually accumulating ~20% of my portfolio in low-cost ETFs like Vanguards: mostly the diversified Growth (VDGR) and High Growth (VDHG) portfolios but also these individual Australian ETFs (VAS, VGS, VAF, VGE, VSO) at more opportunistic times for each asset class (i.e. when they have dips or crashes). Of the US ETFs cross-listed on the ASX, the disadvantage is having to submit the W8-BEN form to reduce withholding tax, so only a few ultra low-fee ones are worth considering: IJH, IJR, IVV, SPY, VEU and VTS.
- Regarding stocks, I place a high value on genuine ethical investing aligned with my priorities. As I complete my research, I will be shifting greater proportions of my LIC and ETF investments to the best ethical alternatives. This means slightly higher fees (~0.2% more) and likely reduced returns (1-3% less), but I'll feel much better about making money. Potential examples are: ESGU, ESGD, ESGE (0.15%, 0.2% and 0.25% expense ratios for US, Developed and Emerging Market ESG firms). A balanced equity portfolio could be made out of these. A few other discrete ETFs are worth looking at but these have higher expense ratios: MPCT, SUSM. On the ASX you may consider these ETFs: FAIR, ETHI
See:
> Balance Impact - Guide to Global Ethical ETFs
> etfdb.com - Socially Responsible ETF List

- "Smart Beta" ETFs.

See:
> Stockspot - Should you buy into smart beta ETFs?
> Blackrock - Enhance portfolios with iShares Edge Smart Beta ETFs

- Online Savings Accounts: 5 to 25% in UBank USaver at 2.87%. Prior rates have been over 6% and at high rates it can be a worthwhile place for a significant proportion of one's portfolio. At rates below 3% the allocation should be small and simply for emergency funds and to maintain same-day liquidity to take advantage of short-term investment opportunities (e.g. shares).
See: > Start using the highest interest term deposit and savings accounts

- Term Deposits: 0%. The highest rate is currently 3.25% for 5 years which isn't a sufficient premium on the 2.87% in UBank or 3% in Rams Saver (which requires no withdrawals in the month). If needing a very low-risk investment, I would consider 5 year term deposits when rates are at least 4% and at least 0.75% higher than UBank. But generally term deposits are only useful for significant funds when 5 year rates are unusually high (e.g. 5% plus) and they offer a way to lock in great relative-value returns for 5 years.
- Currently 0% of my portfolio.
See: > Start using the highest interest term deposit and savings accounts

- LICs (Australian equity Buy and Hold; large size, stable, liquid): 5 to 30%. I would recommend FGX, AFI, ARG, AUI, MLT, BKI, WHF, WLE or DUI when at a discount to NTA and below their 1 year average discount. You can find weekly reports here: Cuffelinks - Listed Investment Company (LIC) updates - Bell Potter LIC Indicative NTAs. Also check LIC reports for those with the highest dividend cover ratios. E.g. WHF.
- Currently 5% of my portfolio (FGX) but will accumulate up to 20% of portfolio in these LICs when market crashes and/or discounts are much higher than average.

- LICs (International equity Buy and Hold, large size, liquid): 5 to 20%. I would recommend FGG, MFF, EGI, EAI, PAF, PGF and PAI when at a discount to NTA and below their 1 year average discount. You can find weekly reports here: Cuffelinks - Listed Investment Company (LIC) updates - Bell Potter LIC Indicative NTAs
- Currently 10-15% of my portfolio in MFF, PAF, PGF and EAI/EGI via options.

- LICs (Various types bought opportunistically or for short-term trading): 0 to 30%. I have the time, interest and capability to identify LICs worthwhile at opportunistic prices for medium-term investing or short-term trading. However, most investors will not so there is no simple piggy-back opportunity here.
- Currently 10-20% of my portfolio in LICs like CVF, ACQ, GVF, BST, MA1, AQF, MEC, GC1, EAIO, EGIO, MECO, CQGO, SNCOA.
See: > Understand how to invest or trade in Australian ASX LICs

- Individual Company Shares: 0%. Investing or trading in individual shares has too much risk and is too time-intensive to justify the potential extra return. The only Australian exception possibly being the big four banks (CBA, WBC, NAB, ANZ) when their share prices are extremely low during market crashes. These would be bought to buy-and-hold for the long term and just receive very high dividends indefinitely.
- Currently 0% of my portfolio.

- Unlisted Managed Funds: 5 to 15%. There are some fund managers I rate highly and which have performed well over at least 5 years. However, the chances for most investors of choosing mostly outperforming funds over the long run are minimal. For cost, liquidity and simplicity reasons, I recommend sticking with fund managers that can be accessed via listed exchanged-traded shares such as ASX LICs.
- Always 0% of my portfolio. I do invest in the recent LICs (when at worthwhile discounts to NTA) of fund managers I rate highly that have traditionally been unlisted. E.g. Morphic Asset Management via its MEC LIC or MECO options.

- Simplified, low-cost international investing platforms: 5 to 20%. For example, Macrovue has an easy-to-use web app that automates direct investing in themes like Disruptive technologies, Internet of things, Silver-haired economy, Clean tech, Feed the world - which each contain 10 global stocks. Or you can customise a themed portfolio, or create a DIY portfolio out of thousands of stocks from over a dozen international exchanges, or have a mix of both types. In overvalued markets I'm not keen on the majority of active investing portfolios and so am not using the Macrovue Vue portfolios with their 0.8% fees. But I am using Macrovue for ultra-cheap access to a few overseas stocks.

- Listed or Diversified Property: 0 to 10%. Property is generally too volatile to be a significant direct, passive investment. These boom or bust conditions are not just from the property price cycle and from tenancy demand versus supply factors, but also the reality that listed property is very sensitive to interest rate changes. It's best to have smaller, actively-managed exposure just through the Balanced (or similar) option of the best superannuation funds. If necessary you can add even more Property exposure via a DIY Mix adjustment. If you are really determined to invest in property do your research.
- If you really wish to add exposure to listed property the best ASX-listed options are Vanguard Australian Property ETF (VAP) which has a 0.23% fee and the SPDR Dow Jones® Global Real Estate Fund (DJRE)  which has a 0.5% fee.
- I have about 10% exposure via AustralianSuper's Balanced option. So around 1.5% of my portfolio.

- Direct Property Ownership: 0% (excluding a home you live in). Unless you have special skills and it is your preferred way to spend your professional or free time, I don't recommend property investing for Australians. It compares poorly in risk and return to almost all comparable investing alternatives. Peer-to-peer direct property investing (e.g. BrickX, DomaCom) is not worthwhile either due to the fees. Eventually, many Australians will buy a home to live in and this is more than enough exposure to direct property.
- I have never owned property and may not till I am over 50 years old.

- Floating Rate or Inflation-linked Bonds: 0 to 10%. Most of the time bond exposure is best had through superannuation (e.g. the Balanced option of your fund) or Vanguard's diversified portfolio ETFs like VDGR and VDHG. However, most bonds in such portfolios are fixed rate and will perform poorly as interest rates rise from record lows. Vanguard's diversified ETFs contain the below bond products which appear to be mostly fixed rate:
- Vanguard Global Aggregate Bond Index Fund Hedged
- Vanguard Australian Fixed Interest Index Fund (Wholesale)
Consequently, if you wish to have bond exposure outside of superannuation, I'd recommend considering floating rate ETFs (QPON, FLOT) or inflation-linked bonds. Personally, I think with interest rates so low, fixed rate bonds have terrible relative value and it is best to keep their proportion (and cash) to a minimum which is why I recommend VDHG or VDGR.
See: > AFR - How to invest like the professionals

- Gold: 0 to 10% and only via a low-cost ETF like PMGOLD (0.15% fee) on the ASX. Gold isn't an investment it's a hedge against collapse that usually only performs well only when all other assets are crashing.
- Currently 0% of my portfolio. If secular risks to economies and financial systems increase substantially I will start adding it to my portfolio.

- Commodities: 0%. You could buy the BetaShares Commodities Basket ETF (QCB) for a 0.69% fee, but the medium to long-term performance is poor. If you really want to bet on commodity cycles then buying the shares of the most relevant, large resource firms is a far better option (e.g. BHP, RIO).

- Cryptocurrencies: 0 to 1%. Currently, these are all speculative gambles not investments. The main thing going against them as currency alternatives is their volatility. However, this may not persist forever if a solution emerges. Nevertheless, just as trading foreign currencies ("forex") is zero-sum gambling, so is trading cryptocurrencies; there is no wealth creation. Currently, if seeking to escape the risk of your fiat currency being debased your best option is to invest in international LICs or ETFs (taking currency exposure plus actually investing in wealth-creating businesses).
See: > Investing in Cryptocurrency: The Risks

An ultra-simple portfolio for a 35 year old might be:

- 10% in UBank USaver (with Ultra account bonus) paying 2.87% (cash/emergency/opportunity reserve)
- 20% in RateSetter Australia 5 year market at average rate of 9%
- 40% in Vanguard's High Growth diversified portfolio VDHG (bought via CommSec) with likely average return over 15 years of 5-12%
- 15% in ASX LICs when trading at below-average discounts to NTA (see examples above) if actively interested in learning about listed markets, fund managers and direct investment opportunities. A novice can start by simply buying two buy-and-forget LICs: FGX (Australian shares) and FGG (International shares). Or if you don't have the inclination to learn anything about LICs, then just put this 15% in VDHG.

My long-term target portfolio is similar to the above but with 30-35% in RateSetter Australia, 15-25% in VDHG (or similar ethical ETFs like ESGD), 20-30% in LICs (FGX, FGG, GVF, EAI, PGF, CVF, ACQ or similar) and 5% in global stock picks bought via Macrovue and Stake.

Vanguard Diversified High Growth Index ETF (VDHG) with 0.27% fee


Examples of investments I advise you to avoid:

- Hot stocks, especially those most popular with unsophisticated retail investors. Tesla is my current example. The disruption hype, past share price growth, Musk-adulation and any other non-maths reason you might hear for buying it just explains its overvaluation. The only thing that matters is proper analysis of its financial situation and its operating cash burn is so extreme all current stockholders will be wiped out by the end of 2020.

- All Trading Apps like BUX. They might seem simple and transparent but virtually all just expose unsophisticated investors to major risks (including leverage) and high fees. They also encourage speculation and over-trading which is a guaranteed way to lose over the long run.

- Crowdfunding unlisted equity ownership of startups. This is becoming more popular but the vast majority of retail investors in these will lose significant capital on either businesses failing to meet expecations or from the very high fees. I would love some of these firms to succeed but it's very rare that the maths will stack up; if it did these opportunities would rarely be offered to retail investors. For example, one current firm I'd love to see grow massively and make its owners rich is Car Next Door but its crowdfunding listing financial summary profit and loss forecasts are fanciful and unexplained. I also briefly reviewed an Equitise-funded startup called Gather Online and can virtually guarantee that the investors who put in $900,000 will lose all of their money.
> Platforms include: > Seedrs, > Equitise, > OurCrowd (see fee example)

- Most P2P lending platforms for two reasons.
(a) Most won't gain sufficient scale in Australia to compete at the prime end of the lending market with competitive rates and fees and so end up with either high fees, elevated risks, or the chance the platform won't be around for the long run or be able to meet its commitments (e.g. first loss protection, debt recovery, etc).
(b) Some of the bigger, safer ones offer retail investors inadequate returns to justify the extra risk. Even on the only Australian P2P lending platform I recommend, RateSetter Australia, I advise only lending in the 5 year market at rates above 8.8% as the relative return is high enough to subsume some default losses.

- Most roboinvesting/roboadvice platforms that have higher fees than Stockspot or other drawbacks. For example, Acorns has higher fees and offers no risk assessment questionnaire to guide decisions.  Note that QuietGrowth charges no fees beyond ETF purchase costs for balances between $2,000 and $10,000, so this may be worth considering if you are investing less than $10,000.
See: > Finder - Robo Advice comparison

- Most simplified, part-automated active investing platforms. Usually there is a downside such as that the long-term active investing performance (inclusive of all fees and costs) won't beat equivalent passive benchmark returns. It's much easier to simply invest in LICs that invest overseas. If a sophisiticated investor with sufficient time then see Macrovue above.

- Borrowing to invest. Firstly, you should never borrow to invest unless you are a reasonably-sophisticated investor or relying on one. If you can't see all the flaws and pitfalls in this investment lending explanation you don't pass the test. Secondly, even if quite sophisticated you shouldn't borrow to invest if:
- Your loan interest rate is over 5%. If you can access funds at less than 3.5% then there's much more chance of it being worthwhile.
- Your loan to value ratio is over 40% or you could be subject to forced selling
- You are borrowing to speculate rather than invest in a genuinely-proven long-term strategy
- You are borrowing because you don't have the discipline to save to invest. If you lack the discipline to save then you definitely lack the discipline and capability to use leveraged investing
- You are primarily driven by the desire to save tax by offsetting the investment loan interest against other income
- I have never borrowed to invest. I can access investment loans via occasional Nabtrade offers at ~4.8% but that requires a 6.25% before-tax return just to break even. So if my actual annual return was 8% I would only be making 1.75%. To make it worthwhile the extra overhead (arranging and managing the loan, tax and new funds), I'd need to borrow a lot (to leverage this small gain) and be fully invested continuously which would require a reliably-rising market or a lot more active investing effort. Also, borrowing to invest makes less sense the closer you are to achieving your financial goals in a reasonable timeframe.
- Given foreseeable macroeconomic conditions, the only time even reasonably-sophisticated investors should consider borrowing to invest is if they pass all of the above criteria and the market has just crashed and they are just seeking extra short-term liquidity to capitalise on the opportunity.
- A much better, free source of leverage is buying undervalued LIC options like MECO, EAIO, EGIO, CQGO.
See: > Understand how to invest or trade in Australian ASX LICs


2. How to reduce risk while maintaining exposure to high return assets

The holy grail of optimising an investment portfolio is to reduce risk while not sacrificing an equivalent amount of return. Obviously, one can just move a higher proportion to capital-protected investments (e.g. cash in a government-insured savings account) but this does sacrifice growth returns.

In this section, I will provide links to some useful articles as well as include a few key bullet-point notes.

Potential Strategies:

- Market Timing: Moving a higher proportion to safer or less correlated asset classes when you consider the risk/reward expectations to be less worthwhile. This can be based on various measures like CAPE ratios, interest rate direction, or volatility rising. You need to have a genuine edge to

- Behaviour Control: The major risk for most retail investors is that they sell near the bottom and then wait for a desired re-entry level that never comes and eventually buy back in well into the rise. One way to reduce this behaviour risk is to set up automated periodic investing or to make selling out more difficult (e.g. by putting money into superannuation or making it harder to panic sell listed investments).

- Implementing your optimum risk management approach: Your key risks can be volatility, maximum portfolio drawdown, the length of drawdowns or some other aspect.of loss or uncertainty. Depending on your circumstances you can switch investments and your approach to minimise the risks you care about. E.g. Some investors don't care about volatility in periods under 1-2 years and set up their investments such that they wouldn't need to sell when prices are depressed, depending instead on returns from other assets or from dividends. One underutilised method is to increase the liquidity of your overall portfolio when you think risks of drawdowns are elevated. E.g. You may keep your stock market exposure high (as market timing rarely works) but increase the liquidity of other funds (cash, P2P lending) and listed investments (e.g. move from some illiquid LICs to more liquid LICs or ETFs).

- Uncorrelated Investments:  "Traditional stock and bond portfolios are dominated by the single factor of market beta. Even market-cap-weighted 60% stock and 40% bond portfolios have about 85% of their risk concentrated in market beta, with the remainder in term risk (if the portfolio uses Treasuries and CDs), and a small amount in credit risk (if the portfolio includes investment-grade corporate bonds). To further diversify risk, and to improve the efficiency of the portfolio, investors need to add investments that have earned unique premiums (meaning they have low correlation with the portfolio’s other investments) and have demonstrated persistence, pervasiveness and implementability (meaning they survive transaction costs)." See: > Swedroe: Correction Protection In Liquid Alts

See:
> Portfolio Visualizer - Asset Class Correlations


3. My direct investments in international stocks using Stake and Macrovue

This section is a work in progress. Currently, just doing stock research on ethical impact investing and putting notes here.

Waste-to-Energy: Covanta, Suez, Wheelabrator, Veolia, China Everbright

Greenhouse/Indoor Farming:

Wind Energy: Goldwind

Global Amazons: JD.com


4. 150 passive portfolios that are probably better than yours (American focus)

"A good portfolio is broadly diversified, low-cost, mostly or completely passively managed, regularly rebalanced, and consistent with its owner’s need, ability, and desire to take risk.  Every portfolio in this post meets those qualifications.  Pick one you like, or design your own.  Just don’t go looking for the best one.  As Prussian General Karl Von Clausewitz said, “The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.”
> > 150 Portfolios Better Than Yours


5. Review of Macrovue - Theme-based investing in global equities

Macrovue is a recent Australian fintech platform that simplifies investing in global equities by enabling investors to choose professionally-researched global stocks categorised into 20 themes like clean tech, disruptive tech, global entertainment, asian healthcare, car of the future, feed the world, etc. It's web platform is excellent, fees for international brokerage (0.12%) and FX (0.5%) are reasonable (sometimes even cheap for hard-to-access exchanges), and it offers the ability to maintain foreign currency balances rather than be forced to convert to AUD each time you sell.

Thus the main decision on whether to use Macrovue or not comes down to whether you are looking to delegate your global stock research, whether you think Macrovue's research is worth 0.8% in fees, and whether you are seeking to buy and hold stocks for the medium to long run.

I think 0.8% on top of transaction fees is the equivalent of an active management fund. So if you rate Macrovue's stock-picking highly you may choose to simply invest in its "Vues" which should update as stocks are changed. However, I don't think it actively modifies its Vue stocks often enough given relative valuations. Alternatively, you could pick individual stocks yourself and maintain your own portfolio but this is really only worthwhile if Macrovue is providing access to exchanges you can't easily access yourself at a reasonable cost.

Personally, I wouldn't use Macrovue Vues as they are too concentrated, often volatile and relative value doesn't alter stock composition often enough. I generally consider individual stock picking myself to be not worth the added time and risk. However, there are a few specific impact investing firms I will use Macrovue to invest in.

As of 24 Dec 2017 Macrovue:
- Offers 2378 global stocks
- - Exchanges include: NYSE, NASDAQ, Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Jasdaq, Euronext Brussels, Euronext Paris, London, Six Swiss, Frankfurt, Zetra, Milan, OMX Nordic Helsinki/Copenhagen, Madrid, NYSE Arca, US OTC.
- Countries include US, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, France, Israel, Hong Kong, Brazil, UK, Mexico, South Africa, Belgium, Columbia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Peru, Germany, India, Italy, Ireland, Norway, South Korea, Russia, Greece, Finland, Denmark, Philippines, Luxembourg, Turkey, Singapore, Sweden, Poland, Malaysia, Vietnam and many others.

Social Media Vue as of 24/12/2017

Disruptive Technologies Vue as of 24/12/2017

Car Of The Future Vue as of 24/12/2017

Clean Tech Vue as of 24/12/2017

Asian Healthcare Vue as of 24/12/2017


6. Review of Stake - Ultra cheap access to the most common stocks/ETFs on US exchanges

Stake is a web platform for Australians to buy around 3,000 US stocks and ETFs with zero brokerage and only a 0.7% FX fee. Also, when selling their funds can remain in US dollars and so no FX fee is necessary.

The biggest advantage of Stake is how simple it is. All the painful aspects of buying US stocks - application forms, W8-BEN forms, transfers between the various accounts needed - have been made fully-online and as efficient as possible.

Transaction costs are ultra-cheap and this really adds up as trades increase:

Stake - Pay less, get more. Yes it's true

The only caution I have is against putting a significant proportion of one's investments into US stocks based on how hyped and well-known they are or recent price gains. Tesla is the most viewed, watched and traded stock on Stake but has never made money and currently its operations burn $1 billion a quarter. Unsophisticated investors should start by investing in profitable firms and low-cost ETFs that can't be accessed in Australia.

Personally, I used Stake to buy an ethical ETF only available in the US: ESGD


7. Comments on well-known investments

Uber is a private company that the mainstream media and popular opinion considers to be worth $70 billion. If it was publicly-listed many retail investors would jump right in. But its business model can't make a profit and its billions of dollars of losses will eventually lead to a massive fall in its value and possible collapse. This is desireable as Uber users are currently living it up off the backs of the 98% of Uber drivers who simply aren't able or willing to figure out their true profit margin is either below minimum wage or negative.

Given SoftBank is buying 15% of Uber I would avoid all ETFs (e.g. IXP) and mutual funds whose holdings include a significant proportion of SoftBank.

See:
> Naked Capitalism - Uber

Tesla is much loved by many retail investors but mass producing cars cost-efficiently is extremely difficult. Tesla is ridiculously overvalued as a disruptor and tech company, based on businesses that don't exist (e.g. Tesla Mobility) or that lose money (solar energy, solar roofs), when all that really matters is whether it can massively scale production at a profit. At current price points it just burns more cash the more Model 3 cars it produces.

As Tesla will destroy a majority of current shareholder's equity within a few years via capital raisings I would avoid all funds and ETFs (e.g. GEX) with significant or active investments in it.


Future topics...

Types of risk

Active vs Passive vs Mostly-Passive

Home country bias and Currency risk

Longevity risk

Income vs Capital returns (eliminating forced selling, etc)

Tax


Further Info:

ETF Watch
> Blog
> Vanguard launches diversified ETFs on ASX
> New Fixed Interest ETFs expand options for investors

The White Coat Investor
> 150 Portfolios Better Than Yours

ASX
> Managed Funds and ETP product list

SuperGuide
> Peace of mind, at a cost: 10 things to know about annuities

Challenger
> Annuity Rates

Vanguard Investments
> Fund compare tool

PropertyChat
> Boglehead/Vanguard way to retire

Joshua Kennon
> The Quartet of Financial Independence: Cash Flow, Liquidity, Profitability, and Net Worth
> How Joe Campbell Found Himself $106,445.56 In Debt - By Not Understanding the Risks of Shorting Stock, He Lost Everything (and Then Some) In Minutes