Financial services have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent weeks. Following Rowena “Shock and” Orr’s public shellacking of the wealth management industry, AMP Limited has since lost almost its entire board of directors, as well as a big part of the executive team. The banks were... Show More
To paraphrase from an excellent book, The Chimp Paradox; ‘to control your inner chimp, you first have to understand him/her’. This means understanding that your brain makes decisions that are not always in your best interest and the best way to do this set rules around certain behaviours to minimize... Show More
Analysing value stocks requires a deep understanding of the underlying assets. In their responses, Nathan Bell from Peters MacGregor, Alex Shevelev from Forager Funds, and Matt Booker from Spheria Asset Management explain the importance of simplicity and a deep understanding, and share a value stock that ticks the boxes. Show More
Short-covering rallies can be quite spectacular when the short-sellers finally concede defeat. To find out which stocks the short sellers may have got wrong, we put the question to Greencape Capital, NAOS, and Market Matters. Their answers include one of most shorted stocks on the ASX. Show More
If running an effective quant screen was the only thing required to find new stocks ideas, investment success might not be as elusive as it is today. The fact is that investment idea generation is as much an art as it is a science. As Michael Hintze, Founder of $12... Show More
Self-driving cars, electric cars, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, streaming video on demand… The list of technologies threatening to improve our lives and/or take our jobs is ever-growing. Stories of failed incumbents such as Kodak, MySpace, and Yahoo are popular among investors, but in reality, incumbents are frequently successful... Show More
From its low in January to its high in July, the ASX Small Resources Index rallied a stunning 83%. It has since given back some of the gains but remains 50% up from where it started the year. Such a sudden recovery can result in very different views among analysts... Show More
Our expectations haven’t changed since the symposium. The most likely outcome we believe is that the Fed embark on a “dovish hikes” theme. The problem with increasing interest rates in the current environment is that risk markets (equities) are far more interest rate sensitive than in previous cycles. The effect... Show More
The actions of central banks have had an unprecedented impact on bond markets. The outlook for US bond yields is tied as never before to the policies of the Fed, the BoJ, and the European Central Bank (ECB). It should come as no surprise then that we have been paying... Show More
We continue to expect a December hike at the earliest while acknowledging the near-term risks have increased. Our view comes from the fact we have seen this playbook before with Fed Vice Chairman, Stanley Fischer happy to play the wild card to put some uncertainty and volatility into rate expectations.... Show More
On nominal rates alone, I’m more hawkish than I was, though I still don’t expect them to head much higher than 1% before the Fed changes course, a view more in line with the market that the dot-plot. My view on nominal rates is not because I think the Fed... Show More
Following on from yesterday’s collection on the key takeaway to emerge from last week’s Jackson Hole symposium, Livewire has asked our contributors how this affects the investment strategy around their respective asset classes. They make the case that yields are likely to stay low; the RBA is on hold for... Show More
The most important effect on the Australian economy of any interest rate hikes from the Fed, is the impact they would have on the Australian Dollar. We believe the RBA are on hold for a period, most likely six months, to pause and assess the impact of the last interest... Show More
Global bond returns have been particularly strong over the last 2-3 years. In our view, central bank policies have been driving bond yields lower. Large-scale asset purchases in the US, Japan, Europe and, most recently, the UK have been reducing the supply of the highest quality pools of liquidity: government... Show More
Precious metals are my primary focus, and short-term I’m neutral with a downside bias, a position unchanged from our pre-Jackson Hole outlook here at ABC Bullion. The greater focus on a potential rate hike in either September or December of 2016 that came out of Jackson Hole reaffirms this view.... Show More
The darling of 2016 has been Emerging Market (EM) equities, up around 15% in US dollar terms beating the world market by 10%. Low rates have kept the dollar weak, and driven flows into EM as the search for yield has resurfaced. The conference did little to push back on... Show More
Global growth remains muted despite central bank policies that are now so accommodative that the value of negatively yielding bonds has reached $13.4 trillion. The markets are, of course, questioning the efficacy of monetary policy, and its ability to handle future crises. With this backdrop, Jackson Hole in Wyoming last... Show More
In this Livewire Exclusive video, Vimal Gor, Head of Fixed Interest & Income at BT Investment Management, described Yellen’s recent speech at Jackson Hole, "The Federal Reserve's monetary policy toolkit: Past, present, and future" as a ‘damp squib’, i.e.: a ‘fizzer’. He says: “There have been lots of conversation about... Show More
Growth investing, yield investing, and value investing are sometimes thought as competing strategies. However, as star Fidelity fund manager, Peter Lynch, showed back in the 80’s with GARP (Growth at a Reasonable Price); these approaches can be combined. In a recent interview with Livewire, Ben Clarke from TMS Capital, described... Show More
An ASX 50 stock that we think meets the criteria of “reasonable growth, yield, and price” for the medium term is AGL Energy (ASX:AGL). It is an integrated energy company and owner, operator and developer of renewable energy generation in Australia. AGL is generating circa 10% p.a. EPS growth and... Show More