Global stocks have enjoyed the best start to the year in almost three decades. Does this bode well for the rest of 2019? History suggests it does. Since 1928, a good January/February has led to a positive calendar year over 80% of the time. However, history does not always rhyme... Show More
How good are you at reading people? How about a large frightened animal? It’s an interesting question, in today’s tech driven social world, to consider the skill of “reading” the situation. Is it being lost? Does it matter? Hold that thought, and consider the following. You are asked to step... Show More
Quantitative easing (QE) is the process by which central banks inject money directly into the financial system, usually through the purchase of government bonds using printed or electronically created money. This is intended to stimulate economic activity. Show More
A good chart distils terabytes of data into a small image that delivers a big message. And to cherry-pick the messages investors need to hear most right now, we asked some of Australia’s top managers to nominate one chart above all others. Mik Case from Schroders and Chris Rands at... Show More
Emerging markets were volatile throughout 2018, especially during quarter four as they sold off and took some valuation froth out of the market. This has continued into 2019 thus far, but as investors, it’s important to step back and take a longer-term view of the situation. I recently sat down... Show More
January 1996. My wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child. I was a proprietary trader at Bankers Trust (had been since 1991), meaning I took macro views on interest rates and currencies. Indeed, very similar to what I do now, but with the bank’s capital rather than investors’... Show More
While it is easy for investors to conclude that Australia’s run of economic growth is coming to an end with a housing slowdown, a closer balanced analysis of the economy would indicate otherwise. We believe that Australia again will transition growth to other segments in 2019 and reach its 28th... Show More
There is no doubt the Australian economy was weaker in late 2018 than it was during the first half of the year. It seems to have kicked off 2019 on a similarly weak note. Recent economic news has been unambiguously poor and it follows the dismal GDP results released last... Show More
In October the whole firm was rounded up and marched over the road to the grand ballroom of the Wentworth Hotel to hear about the launch of the new US Technology Fund. And I must say it sounded very exciting. Our US equity portfolio manager outlined the penetration of technology... Show More
We are all familiar with the Maginot line. A fortified defence on the border of France and Germany, built by France mostly in the 1930’s to prevent a German invasion. Show More
There was much fanfare on the 22nd May 1994 when millionaire Japanese dentist Akihiro Kabe and co-driver Takeshi Okano approached the start of Australia’s inaugural Cannonball run in a $750,000 Ferrari F40. At the time the most expensive new Ferrari in the world, it was about to tackle Darwin to... Show More
In 1979, Greenland was granted autonomy within the Danish Realm and three years later the island’s parliament held a vote on EU membership. The main issue was control of Greenland’s fishing rights. By 53% to 47%, Greenlanders opted to leave. It took three years to formulate the island’s departure and... Show More
Are you the hunter? Or the hunted? Never thought about it like that when it comes to investing? Well then you are the hunted. The hunter is patient. Very patient. Always aware. Watching, calculating. Then pouncing. Fast and lethal. When I sit down with my trading coach, it is a... Show More
Making accurate predictions is hard, especially about the future. Chris Rands, Portfolio Manager at Nikko Asset Management, says that he likes to focus on demographics when trying to forecast what people will be doing in the future. “When you try to forecast what somebody would be doing, their age is a... Show More
Structurally, Australia’s growth model has been deteriorating for most of the past two decades and is now arguably one of the poorer examples in the developed world. In the years of the last commodity bull cycle, instead of saving in its ‘times of plenty’, Australia funded a large consumption and... Show More
The severity of the global financial crisis, and the weakness of the subsequent recovery, triggered much soul-searching among the economics profession. The global economy may finally be escaping from the long shadow of the crisis, but macroeconomics has continued to undergo a major reassessment in light of its apparent failure... Show More
Guns N’ Roses released their first debut album titled “Appetite for Destruction” in July 1987. Three months later one of the most violent and unexpected equity market corrections in US history occurred. The Dow lost 22.6% of its value on Black Monday, and the causes behind the dramatic fall are... Show More
The relative fortunes of banks in different parts of the world have been increasingly indicative of underlying trends in currency markets. The question is, however, is this a coincidence or should we be viewing it as a signal? Show More
Australia has just celebrated 26 years without a recession and the Government as well as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) are cheering the ongoing growth. In fact, the common consensus amongst these authorities is that growth is set to rebound from its current 1.9% year on year rate and... Show More
GDP surprised to the downside in the September quarter; despite consensus expectations of 0.3% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, the actual result was -0.5%. According to FactSet, economists are more bullish this quarter, with consensus estimates sitting at 0.8%. But a recent slew of poor data could be calling this into question. Show More
