Rudi’s View: This Too Shall Pass, But Markets Are Changing

Rudi's View | 10:00 AM

The past century has witnessed Australian equities turning into the world's top performers, long term, but that's not necessarily how local investors perceive it. Especially not in 2026.

By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck, Editor

With less than two more weeks to go, it looks like total return for the year to June 30th might still be a reasonable outcome, thanks to an oversized contribution from dividends.

To date, total return for FY26 is approximately 7%.

But the internal market polarisation is huge, with large parts moribund or worse, causing a general sense of disappointment to grip the domestic investor community.

Judging from FNArena's conversations recently, responses vary from "I've stopped looking at my portfolio" to "it's all too hard, I'm out", and various scenarios in between.

There's simply no denying, the share market can be an ugly and frustrating beast, testing investor patience and resilience, but history shows it is seldom apposite to project the here and now far into the future.

In other words: this too shall pass, eventually. Just as day follows night and the year's four seasons return in succession, time and again.

Those words might well prove their true worth when this year's wave of tax loss selling has run its course.

The Markets They Are A-Changin'

Having said all of the above, financial markets are changing, potentially to never again revert back to their previous dynamics we became all too familiar with, and thus it is time to sit back and pay attention.