I recently had the opportunity to sit down for 30 minutes with Hamish Douglass, the CIO of Magellan at their new offices in Sydney. We discussed a wide range of topics from his biggest influences to the most impactful trends that are driving his investment strategy today. During my time... Show More
Livewire is proud to announce its partnership with one of Australia’s most innovative FinTech companies, Sharesight. Since 2009 Sharesight has been developing a unique, cloud-based, portfolio tracking and reporting tool that makes it easy to understand your trading history and dividends. The software is now used by over 40,000 (happy)... Show More
KPMG, AWI and the FSC have released their 50 Best Fintech Innovators report for 2014. The report ranks companies that are driving disruption within the international financial services industry and features big global names such as Square, Kickstarter and Xero. We're very proud to see Livewire get a run as... Show More
Comparing the strategies, performance and longevity of the best money managers. Jae Jun at ValueWalk looked up the portfolio strategies of the best performing investment managers. Jae found that the gurus that concentrate (their portfolios) have shorter careers with high performance. While The gurus that practice wide diversification have very... Show More
It's dangerous to have a powerful narrative that drives your investing or advice. James Osborne at Bason Asset Management tells the story of John Hussman, a Portfolio Manager who massively outperformed the market during the GFC nose-dive, but then allowed his academic background to get in the way of reading... Show More
Seek out views that are contrary to your own. Vitaliy Katsenelson says When you are long a stock you are naturally trying to seek out investors who share your opinion, and you naturally stay away from those who have contrary views. This is the comfortable thing to do. Instead, we... Show More
38 maps that give new insights into how the world economy works. Matthew Yglesias from Vox has produced this fascinating article which gives some great insights into both trends and inequality in the economic world. He writes Commerce knits the modern world together in a way that nothing else quite... Show More
What causes market contagion? Sydney Ludvigson, an economics professor at New York University co-authored a study that found that 75% of short-term stock price movements have to do with changes in investors appetite for risk. It turns out the theory does a pretty good job of explaining the recent tech... Show More
12 Charts that show us what's really happening in the global economy. Quartz has released another chart-laden article that shows us 1) how China is performing; 2) The effect that this is having on the rest of the world; 3) How Japan's experiment is playing out; and 4) What's going... Show More
How do different Asset returns compare year on year? Novel Investor has produced an interactive chart that allows you to compare the performance of various assets over the past 15 years. For every year since 2000 it ranks Large Caps, Small Caps, International Stocks, Emerging Market Stocks, REITS, High-Grade Bonds,... Show More
Researchers have discovered something in the brains of great investors that makes them perform so much better. Warren Buffett once said be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy only when others are fearful. According to a new study by behavioural economists from Caltech and Virginia Tech only certain... Show More
JP Morgan: High Yield Bond markets are a major concern. Investors have piled more than $900BN into taxable bond funds since the start of the GFC back in '08. This flood of money has helped prices surge and yields to fall. However JP Morgan and Blackrock are now warning that... Show More
The mining industry brain drain. When asked about their views on retirement within the next five years, 46% of executives expect to retire from full-time engagements or expect to reduce their workload drastically, MRG observed. 'With nearly half of all mining executive planning to have one foot out the door... Show More
The Bull/Bear ratio is sending some ominous signals. The percentage of bulls in the Investors Intelligence's survey has reached the highest level since January 2005. It's worth taking a look at the red-shaded areas on figures 2 and 3 to see corrections that occurred immediately after high ratios of bulls... Show More
John Corr, the CIO of Aurora was 'on the money' with his call that the Private Equity bid for SAI Global might attract additional corporate interest. Today the newspapers report that SAI global has set up a formal bidding process after the indicative offer from Pacific Equity Partners triggered new... Show More
How Worried Should We Be About the Negative GDP Report? Ben Casselman says This is just the 10th time since World War II that GDP growth has been negative outside of a recession. Three of those negative quarters immediately preceded recessions. Everyone is blaming the harsh winter and low inventory... Show More
Beware Chinese companies floating in the US. The Financial Times says investors should be wary of a wave of Chinese IPO's about to list in the US due to accounting/corporate governance issues and a history of poor returns. Between 1993 and 2013 168 companies from Hong Kong and China went... Show More
What's likely to kill you and your investments? Barry Ritholtz says that just like our inflated fears of sharks and terrorists, we spend too much time as investors focusing on things that are relatively rare - like market crashes. On the flip-side, Ritholtz believes investors ignore little things that are... Show More
It's simple: invest in the cheapest global markets and avoid the most expensive. Mebane Faber, CIO of Cambria Investment Management has studied how investors in different markets have fared since 1975. Faber says if you had invested $1,000 in a global stock index in 1975 and just left the money... Show More
Sell in May? One chart really spells it out. As everyone knows the market is about to enter what has historically been the weakest half of the year. This chart illustrates that investing in the S&P 500 during the six months of November through and including April accounted for the... Show More
Excellent podcast, thank you Patrick & Charlie. You did a terrific job explaining everything in laymans terms. Made it really enjoyable to listen to + I learned a few new things
On The Rules of Investing: The virus that affects all assets -
Interesting update, thanks Matt
From the New York Times: “From a Western market perspective, what China is trying to do cuts against everything we know that will work. But they don’t see this the way we do. People in the Western democracies tolerate volatility. But the failure of equity markets in China could translate into social unrest, which is a horrifying prospect for the Chinese leadership.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/business/international/why-chinas-stock-market-bailout-just-might-work.html
They are underweight bonds - full stop - when compared with their global counterparts.
On Goldman Sachs chart: Central Bank balance sheets as a percentage of GDP -
JP Morgan agrees that’s there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Europe saying “There are a number of key catalysts in place for Europe in 2015” Watch the 1 min video: http://goo.gl/YMceta
HSBC's economists Paul Bloxham and Adam Richardson agree... the bar for RBA intervention as very high and unlikely to be met anytime soon. Just speaking about the possibility of intervention was enough to see the Australian dollar sell-off. While the RBA would clearly have welcomed this move, time will tell whether this weakness persists. With much of the weight of the Governor's commentary and the RBA's own modelling indicating that the Australian dollar is not far from fair value and with intervention seen as costly, we still think there is a very high bar set before the RBA would actually consider intervening.
Thanks for sharing this Gav. Here's the full article for those interested: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fed-assets-20131029,0,5018539.story#axzz2jKYqJb00
and David Fullers reply... I maintain that Abenomics is a winning formula for Japan but energy costs are the biggest obstacle. Given Japan's long history of nuclear horrors - from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to Fukushima in 2011 - it is understandable that its citizens will not tolerate the reopening of the nuclear plants.
Full report is available here: https://www.janus.com/bill-gross-investment-outlook
On Bill Gross says the good times are over and it's time to fly to quality -
Full article for those interested: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nouriel-roubini-asks-why-global-financial-markets-remain-buoyant-in-the-face-of-mounting-geopolitical-risks
On Roubini: What could blow markets out of their complacency -
Market strategy calls on page three are impressive Mathan - well done.
On a normalised basis it looks like US equity valuations have been stretched and now reverting... http://goo.gl/aXT7AO
On Seven charts that leave you no choice but to feel optimistic about the US economy -
volume better pick up or brokers will have to go back to youtube product testing. Classic.
OK - so it should be sell in may and go away... but only if you're in the U.S.A.
It looks like financials may extend those numbers further this year...
On Sell in May -
That's sound advice Mathan
A great follow up to your previous post John. Thank you.
Thanks Ann, hopefully the first of many
A good read, thanks Charlie.
I think what he's saying is that people have been warning us about the Chinese bubble since 2007/08 yet they keep marching on albeit at a slower rate. He's not saying it won't pop... just putting it in the too hard basket until we see a clear catalyst.
Good point Hock, will be very interesting to watch the agendas. thanks for sharing your perspective.
Interesting start to the day Jay. Thanks for the update.
On US equities are taking it on the chin today on news of a manufacturing slowdown in China -
Classic show of the wealth effect.
Yep - putting an end date on the misery is much more difficult that establishing start dates
On Just how bad was the GFC in comparison with other financial crises -
Love the Bradbury comment. Even if you don't win, at least you won't crash out.
Welcome back Henry and happy new year. Looking forward to reading some more beeksdownunder.
Thanks for the full update Jay. For anyone that's interested, here's the full FOMC release: http://federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20131218a.htm
Good call and thankfully they followed your advice.
Jay - I was just discussing the sharp move in the VIX with James Marlay and what it means. Do you have a view?
On Do you pay attention to market volatility or monitor the level of investor fear -
Good wrap up, thanks Peter.
Full article is behind the paywall: http://www.afr.com/p/business/financial_services/focus_on_bank_securities_may_be_wpa2NEvUYkyzzEZ5suEnJI
@jmarlay know's the business quite well as he covered them whilst at BRR. James - what's your view on how they handle so many smaller businesses?
Another point to consider... Alex Cowie @acowie said to me last night... It's novel marketing to say that the messages are deleted after 10 seconds but you can bet the NSA has them all on file.
On Snapchat, the latest social-media fad in the States has rejected a $3BN offer from Facebook -
@scheatham suggests snap-wire. I'll talk to our Dev team over the weekend to make it happen.
On Snapchat, the latest social-media fad in the States has rejected a $3BN offer from Facebook -
Significant turn around for them since May 2013 when they forecasted gold to bounce back to $1600. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bnp-paribas-sees-gold-above-1600-in-6-months-2013-05-10
Good wrap up thanks Jay - the full article from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for those interested can be read here: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
On Big economic news is out today with heavy implications on US equities -
China has just lifted the ban on Facebook but only for people in Shanghai. Will be interesting to see the takeup. I'm guessing due to the exclusivity and desire for Chinese to understand what's going on in the rest of the world it will be good. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2431861/China-lifts-ban-Facebook--people-living-working-small-area-Shanghai.html
Here's the full link to the WSJ aritcle for those interested: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303618904579171502758867222
Better a year early than a month late. Well said Perko
Bega board met on Thursday to consider raising the bid...
Here's the link if you are a member of FT: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/10/30/1681512/bear-hunting/
Seems like there's a big negative sentiment change over the past 48 hours. Is this just the start?
Guthrie - great to have you on Livewire. Hope all's well
UBS have also upgraded to a BUY rating as the company managed to lift its gross margins underpinning estimates. In UBS's view, the case of ResMed has now become one of shorter term headwinds against longer term value.
On Macquarie: market has oversold Resmed (RMD) as results came in lower that analyst expectations -
China and the rest of the world have lost faith in the US to mange its politics/economy. Very difficult for UST's to be viewed as risk-free any longer now that we've seen what's possible.
Welcome Sloan - good to have you on Livewire.
On Our October 2013 Economic & Market update is now available -
Welcome David - great to have you with us!
On First post on livewire. If anything like Twitter it won't be the last! -
Are you also calling a cut in Feb?
On Bill Evans from Westpac now predicting the RBA will next cut rates in February -
@adawes welcome - great to see you on the platform
Heres' the link: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/chart-of-the-day-executives-around-the-globe-are-finally-optimistic-again-2013-9
Read this last night and would recommend - a concise breakdown of the important numbers.
Interesting to see how close the fidelity result was to the LW poll!
Welcome to LW CommSec... great to see you on the platform!
Good to see you on LW Sophia!
Interesting analysis - thanks for contributing David.
Welcome to the site Alexis!