Independence · Judging sources
General Advice, Personal Advice and Factual Information
Australian law draws lines between information, general advice and personal advice. Knowing where a source sits tells you how much it can know about you, and how much weight its opinion deserves. That includes this site.
Every week you'll read something that sounds like advice. A newsletter "top pick". A podcast host who "loves" a stock. A broker's research note. A YouTube thumbnail with an arrow on it. Some of these are legally advice. Some aren't. Almost none of them know anything about you.
That last bit is the part that matters.
Three categories, in plain English
Factual information
Objectively checkable facts, with no recommendation or opinion meant to influence a decision. What a franking credit is. How a limit order works. What an index fund's fee was last year. ASIC's guidance (RG 244) treats this as outside the advice regime.
General advice
A recommendation or opinion about a financial product, or a class of products, that doesn't take your personal circumstances into account. "Australian bank shares look expensive" is the kind of statement that can be general advice. Retail clients receiving it are meant to get a warning that it hasn't considered their objectives, financial situation or needs.
Personal advice
Advice where the provider has considered one or more of your objectives, financial situation or needs, or where a reasonable person would expect them to have. This carries much heavier obligations in Australia, including a duty to act in your best interests and, usually, a written Statement of Advice.
The legal definitions sit in section 766B of the Corporations Act. The exact edges are a matter for lawyers. For you as a reader, the useful question is simpler: has this source actually looked at my situation?
Why the category changes how you read it
General advice can be smart, well-researched and right. It still can't tell you whether the idea suits a 34-year-old with a mortgage and three kids or a 68-year-old drawing a pension from an SMSF. The writer doesn't know which one you are. Treat it as an input to your process, not a decision.
Personal advice should be built around you. That's its value, and also why it costs money. If someone appears to be giving you personal advice for free over social media, ask who is actually paying, and whether they are licensed to give it. ASIC's Financial Advisers Register on Moneysmart lets you check a named adviser.
Questions to ask any source
- Does it know anything about my circumstances? If not, it's general at best.
- How does it get paid? Commissions, subscriptions, product issuers and trading volume all create incentives.
- Does it name products? If so, does it disclose holdings or relationships?
- Does it show its evidence, with dates, or just conviction?
- Would its author lose anything if the call is wrong?
And this site?
Fair question. Invest Like You is built to stay on the education side. It explains methods, mechanics and evidence, and it uses tools like the Four Levers to help you build a reading shortlist. It doesn't recommend products, doesn't tell you what to buy or sell, and doesn't know your circumstances. Even a Fit Check result is a prompt for which chapter to read first, not a statement that a method suits you.
When you need advice that does account for your circumstances, that's a job for a licensed adviser, a tax agent or a lawyer, depending on the question.
What to do with this
Pick the three sources you read most often about investing. For each one, write down which category it mostly sits in and how it gets paid. If any of them influence real decisions you make, check that the weight you give them matches what they can actually know about you.