In today's podcast, Scott Francis looks at the collapse of the Opes Prime stockbroking service.  He refelects that given that news plus some difficult news coming out of the USA today, it has been a good day on the ASX with the index slightly up for the day.  Maybe a sign of growing optimism?

In the podcast Scott looks at the aggressive nature of Opes' strategy and the end result for their clients.  The key message is the added risk involved with margin lending.  In strong bull markets, returns are increased but in falling markets, the falls are greater especially so if markets fall sharply and you are forced to sell assets in a down market.  Please click the following link to be taken to this podcast - Lessons from the Opes Prime Collapse.

In today's podcast, Scott Francis looks at how investors can access the best researched investment portfolio in the world and have others pay for that research - Index funds.  Scott explains the that a company share price is a collection of all the research in the marketplace.  By owning 'the market' through an index fund you are benefitting from all this research and are not paying for it.  Please click the following link to be taken to this podcast - Best researched portfolios in the world.