Investing seems to be getting more and more complex. Ever increasing complexity in terms of investment products and choices, regulations and rules around investing, the role of social media in amplifying the noise around investment markets and the increasing ways available to access various investments are all adding to this complexity. However, at its core, […]
Scepticism about China’s economic success amongst (mostly western) investment commentators has been an issue for as long as I can remember. The current China worries mainly relate to slowing growth, high debt and the trade dispute with the US. China is now the world’s second largest economy and its biggest contributor to growth so what […]
Three years after it first started raising interest rates in this cycle the Fed has increased rates for the ninth time, raising the Fed Funds rate another 0.25% to a target range of 2.25-2.5%. While this was largely anticipated by markets, the Fed was less dovish than expected and so shares sold off in response. […]
2019 is likely to be an interesting year for the Australian economy. Some of the big drags of recent years are receding but housing is turning down, uncertainty is high around the global outlook and it’s an election year, which will add to uncertainty. This note looks at the main issues around the housing downturn […]
2018 – a lot weaker than expected After the relatively low volatility and solid returns of 2017, the past year has seen almost the complete opposite with high volatility and poor returns. It started strongly in January but started to get messy from February. At a big picture level things were fine: global growth looks […]
While global and Australian shares had a nice bounce from their late October lows – rallying about 5%, partly reversing their 10% or so top to bottom fall, they have since fallen back to their lows as the worries about US rates, bond yields, trade, tech stocks, etc, have morphed into broader concerns about global […]
A few months ago Reserve Bank Governor Phillip Lowe provided four common sense points we should all keep in mind regarding borrowing to finance a home. (The Governor’s speech can be found here). I thought they made sense and so summarised them in a tweet to which someone replied that every checkout operator knows them. […]
October was a bad month for shares with global shares losing 6.8% in local currency terms and Australian shares losing 6.1%. It’s possible that following top to bottom falls of 9% for global shares, 11% for Australian shares, 21% in emerging markets and 31% in Chinese shares we have now seen the low in the […]
Introduction Some commentators claim shares are way overvalued and so a crash is inevitable. As always, it’s a lot more complicated, but given the current turbulence in share markets it’s worth having a look at whether share markets are expensive or not as a guide to how vulnerable we are to further falls. More broadly, […]
Introduction Every so often shares go through rough patches. We saw this most recently around February on the back of US inflation and interest rate concerns and the start of US tariffs which saw US shares and global shares fall roughly 10% and Australian shares fall 6%. Shares mostly recovered – even getting through the […]
