Here’s what you need to know today

• Australian small cap favourite DroneShield fell 30% in a day after reports that short sellers were eyeing the high flying Australian defence stock. Investors may not be too concerned, even after the fall the stock is still up 432% year-to-date.
  
  

• Stock markets keep reaching record highs. Earlier this week, Australia’s ASX 200 broke through the 8,000 mark for the first time ever (since then it has slightly pulled back). In the US, markets are nearing all-time highs largely driven by Apple which rose 3% after analysts predicted new AI integrations would see customers upgrade iPhones and iPads.
  
  

• Two days after surviving an assassination attempt, Donald Trump had a big day at the Republican National Convention. He named Ohio Senator JD Vance as his Vice Presidential running mate. Vance is seen as a true torch-bearer of Trump’s MAGA policies although was previously a notable critic - in 2016 he was a ‘Never Trumper’ and once called the former President “America’s Hitler”.
  
  

• As it looks more likely that Trump will win the Presidential election, markets are reacting to the ‘Trump Trade’. Trump-aligned sectors like oil, firearms and private prisons all rose while Trump-adverse sectors like solar and cannabis fell.
  
  

• In an interview with Sky News Australia, Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that print newspapers are dying out. “Fifteen years, with a lot of luck” the former News Corp chair replied to a question about how long physical newspapers had left as a viable business.
  
  

• Results out of the US show that big financial institutions keep getting bigger. BlackRock reported that assets under management reached a record high of $10.6 trillion, while revenue rose 8% to $4.8 billion. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs reported that profits for the second quarter were almost triple what they were a year ago. 

What the…?

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this but the Trump assassination merch boom has begun. From large conservative commentators to small creatives, everyone is trying to cash in. Etsy already has more than 1,000 products for sale, while eBay has more than 1,200.

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

A Balanced Portfolio Always Comes with Regrets

We love the message of this article, that balanced, long-term, sensible investing will always invite a little bit of regret. You will always be able to look back and regret not being more fully invested in the hot asset of that particular moment. And that’s regret is okay. It’s more than okay, it’s a good thing.

Whether it is Bitcoin, tech stocks, the current AI hype or whatever comes next, there will always be a fast-growing part of the market that in hindsight would’ve been the best place to invest. But the challenge is, it is only obvious in hindsight. Plenty of fortunes have been lost trying to go all-in on ‘the next big thing’.

Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, had a portfolio split 50% in bonds and 50% in stocks. He once commented, “I spend about half of my time wondering why I have so much in stocks, and about half wondering why I have so little.”

By having a diversified portfolio, you may always have a small level of regret at the opportunities not fully taken. The good news, that’s better than the larger regret of not being balanced and blowing up a large chunk of your portfolio.

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