International Equity Markets

Residential investment property performed better than all investments in the last decade. Australian bonds were the second best performing asset class returning 6.4% p.a. Australian shares were the third highest with 6.1% p.a (Australian Securities Exchange, 2012). Within the same period, the Global Real Estate Investment Trust (REITS) outperformed the Australian REITs. Unhedged oversea shares achieved the lowest return of any asset class over the 10-year period. Had any investor hedged his overseas shares investment he would have received 3.7% p.a. And 6.7% p.a. over the past 10 and 20 years (Australian Securities Exchange, 2012). These were the results before tax but after costs. The results after tax and after costs for the past decade indicated that the residential property outperformed all other asset classes at the lowest and highest marginal tax rates with returns of 7.2% and 5.8% p.a. respectively (Australian Securities Exchange, 2012). Within that...
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