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Announcements
December 2025
Dear Clients, Friends, and Colleagues,As we close out 2025, it's a privilege to share our final quarterly update of what has been a transformative year. From landmark US tax legislation to expanding our Australian operations, 2025 brought significant milestones for our clients and firm. Markets reached new heights despite geopolitical uncertainty, while we deepened our ability to serve families living between the US and Australia.
2025 Year-End Investment Report
For global investors, the past twelve months have been defined by a remarkable display of resilience; despite the headlines of shifting trade policies and a "cooling" labor market, US equities climbed a "wall of worry" to record highs, fueled by the industrial-scale buildout of AI and a long-awaited pivot in central bank policy. In Australia, the market has carved its own steady path, supported by robust commodity prices and a strengthening AUD, even as we navigate a hawkish RBA and the domestic implications of global tariff shifts. Read More Here
Business Milestones
Closer to home, 2025 has been equally momentous for Areté Wealth Strategists. From the clarity provided by the mid-year passage of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA) to the formal expansion of our presence here in Australia, our focus remains steadfast: providing the technical precision and life-centered strategy required to navigate a cross-border life. In this edition, we’ll dive into our significant operational milestones, a sophisticated new risk management tool for concentrated wealth, and our vision for a purposeful 2026.
Update: Dually Registered/Dually Qualified US/Australian Cross-Border Advice
A significant highlight of 2025 has been the formal expansion of our Australian operations. I am pleased to share that in Q4 25 I passed the Australian Financial Adviser (FA) Exam. This paves the way for my appointment as an Authorized Representative at IMFG where I shall now be positioned to provide cross-border US/Australian financial advice.
This will be a value enhancement for our cross-border clients as being licensed and regulated in both the US and Australia, we remove the friction and "advice gaps" that often occur when working with separate firms in each country. This dual registration allows us to provide truly integrated, fiduciary advice that accounts for the tax, and investment nuances of both jurisdictions simultaneously. Whether we are optimizing your Australian Superannuation or managing your US brokerage accounts, you now have the peace of mind that your strategy is legally sound and tactically aligned on both sides of the Pacific.
Investment Operations: Institutional Risk Management for a Concentrated Stock Position: The SpiderRock "Collar" Implementation
As the scale of the capital we manage continues to grow, so too does our ability to access institutional-grade tools that were once the exclusive domain of multi-family offices. This quarter, we successfully implemented a sophisticated Equity Collar strategy for a client with a significant concentrated stock position, utilizing the advanced technology of SpiderRock Advisors.
The Challenge: Protecting Wealth Without Triggering Taxes (read more here)
Client Service and Planning Milestones
The cornerstone of this quarter was our final Quarterly Client Value Add session of 2025: our Year-End Client Appreciation event, "The 5 Types of Wealth." Rather than focusing solely on the balance sheet, we gathered to explore a more holistic framework for prosperity—Financial, Social, Time, Health, and Mental wealth. This session was designed to recognize that for the global citizen, "wealth" is often defined by the freedom to spend time with family across oceans or the health and vitality required to enjoy a dual-country retirement. It was a privilege to see so many of you engage with these concepts as we celebrated the progress made throughout the year.
By viewing 2026 through the lens of these five categories, we’ve been able to help clients move beyond static financial targets and toward purposeful life design. Whether your focus for the coming year is optimizing your tax footprint ahead of the US tax reverts or finally making the leap to spend more time in Australia, these exercises ensure that your life centered financial strategy is the engine and not just quantitative investment returns.
Personal Events and Firm Travel
Global Financial Planning Institute: Roatán 2026
In January, Katelyn, Nicole and I will be traveling to Roatán, Honduras, for an international financial planning conference hosted by the Global Financial Planning Institute (GFPI).
This gathering of specialized cross-border practitioners is a key event for the profession, focusing on the unique challenges faced by globally mobile families. These sessions are instrumental in refining our "best-in-class" strategies for international tax residency, global estate planning, and the evolving regulatory landscape that impacts our US-Australian community. I am the co-founder/Executive Director of the GFP Institute.
UCI World Championships: Lorne, VIC
On a personal note, I was thrilled to compete in the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in Lorne, Victoria, this past October. I qualified earlier for the world championships back in April at Tour de Brisbane despite a crash/broken rib incurred during the race. It was a highlight to race along the iconic Great Ocean Road against top international amateur cyclists, despite my fitness a long way from peak (given another worse crash during the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder at the end of June). The world’s were not only a physical challenge—battling the notorious coastal winds and steep climbs—but personally rewarding. Maintaining this level of physical vitality is essential for the focus and energy I bring to our complex planning work every day.
With better fitness, I think I could’ve knocked perhaps a 1 min off this time on the opening 10km hill climb.
Warm Regards,
Ashley Murphy, CFP® GFP Fellow
Principal & Founder
Areté Wealth Strategists Australia
Captiva Island, FL
Q1-26 Upcoming Areté Webinars
Please keep an eye out for the registration emails closer to the date.
Q4-25 Private Client Events
2025 End-of-Year Tax Planning Under OBBBA: Roth Conversions, Charitable Contributions, QBI Planning, And More (Nov 26th)
With the US tax landscape now significantly reshaped given the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed in July 2025, we identified immediate opportunities for the 2025 filing year. Specifically, we discussed accelerating charitable contributions into 2025 to avoid the new 0.5% AGI floor hitting in 2026, and maximizing the newly expanded $40,000 SALT deduction cap. We also covered the permanent extension of the QBI (Section 199A) deduction and why the current 37% top bracket makes strategic Roth Conversions a powerful tool for those looking to lock in historically low rates before future legislative shifts.
Year-end Goal Setting '5 Types of Wealth' Book Review (Dec 23rd)
In this session, we reviewed Sahil Bloom’s framework, The 5 Types of Wealth, which challenges the traditional focus on the bank balance as the sole measure of success. We discussed how true prosperity is a balance of five "vaults": Financial, Time, Social, Physical, and Mental wealth. The session focused on the concept of defining your "Enough Life"—the point where financial resources serve as an enabler for time freedom and health rather than a treadmill of endless accumulation. By identifying "Anti-Goals" (the things we are unwilling to sacrifice), clients were encouraged to design a 2026 trajectory that prioritizes their most finite asset: time.
Q4-25 Areté Webinars
This technical session addressed the complex friction that occurs when Australian estates meet US tax residents. We broke down the "advice gap" surrounding Superannuation death benefits, which the IRS often views through the lens of foreign trusts, and the critical importance of cost-base step-ups for Australian property. Key takeaways included the proactive use of testamentary trusts and the navigation of Form 3520 reporting requirements to ensure that a family’s hard-earned legacy isn't unnecessarily eroded by cross-border tax inefficiencies or compliance penalties.
Super Pitfalls: US Tax Treatment of Australian Superannuation (Dec 25)
This was one of our most-attended sessions of the year. The complexities of how the IRS views Australian Super remain a top concern for expats. We continue to advocate for proactive planning—particularly regarding recontribution strategies and the potential "Super Tax Trap"—to ensure your retirement savings remain tax-effective on both sides of the Pacific.
Domestic Content
Dark Days for the Dollar
Discover how the U.S. dollar's steepest slide since 2017 is shaking up global markets, and why political pressure on the Federal Reserve could mean even "darker days" ahead for your wallet.
Bitcoin Woes
Discover how Bitcoin's stunning climb has suddenly turned into a "mild stampede" for the exits as wavering confidence and stalled political support put the future of digital currency to its ultimate test
Precious Metals Rollercoaster
After historic, double-digit price surges in gold and silver, learn how a sudden end-of-year crash burned leveraged investors and why one of the metals is still poised for a comeback.
If you’ve been pleased with the work we’ve done together and have a friend or someone you care about facing similar challenges, we want to extend for you to make an introduction. We guide all clients through our Wealth Summit Pathway process to get to understand their most deeply held values, goals and understand their relationship to money. If we’re not the right firm to help them, we will do our best to find them the right advisor.
Please let us know if we might be of assistance.
Have a wonderful rest of your day,
Ashley Murphy, CFP® GFP (USA) Fellow
Areté Wealth Strategists, LLC.
Access our comprehensive, unbiased financial guides here.
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