Why rates aren’t going up in Australia Here’s 4 reasons why: It wasn’t so long ago that everyone was wondering when rates were going to rise. Now it’s looking like we will be waiting for a while before the Reserve Bank of Australia puts up official rates. We don’t expect the RBA to raise rates until 2020. How is this so, you may ask, given inflationary fears are playing some havoc with stock markets, particularly …
Weekly Market Update 20 July 2018 Investment markets and key developments over the past week Trade fears took a bit of a back seat over the past week allowing investors to focus on positive underlying fundamentals including good US earnings results, which saw most major share market rise. This included the Australian share market which is having another go at breaking through the 6300 level helped by industrial, financial, telco and consumer shares. Chinese shares …
Commercial real estate is a unique asset class that acts and performs differently from other investment classes.
The US economy – does the flattening yield curve indicate recession is imminent? Key points If you are worried about a major bear market, the US economy is the key to watch. While traditional measures of the US yield curve have flattened sending warning signs about future growth, it has given false signals in the past, is still positive and other versions of the yield curve point to rising growth. Moreover, apart from very low …
Global trade wars could escalate AMP Capital Chief Economist Shane Oliver has warned that the global trade war could escalate, triggering further short-term investment volatility, but will ultimately be resolved through a negotiated settlement. Oliver says the trade war issue is going to be with us for some time to come. “There is a risk here,” he says. “There is continued talk of escalation and retaliation, more tariffs on China potentially, and talk of tariffs …
Weekly Market Update 13 July 2018 Investment markets and key developments over the past week There was plenty of volatility this week as equities initially got hit following more detail from the US around additional tariffs on Chinese imports. The announcement actually contained nothing new, as Trump said in late June that the US would look to impose an additional 10% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese imports if China was to retaliate against US trade tariffs (which …
EOFY super returns: how have markets fared? The last financial year has been a strong period for super fund portfolios. Equity markets posted solid gains both in Australia and offshore, up 13.7% and 15.4% respectively. Returns were also positive across other asset classes such as direct property and infrastructure, and bond returns, although modest, were much stronger than the previous year. Overall, global growth conditions helped to drive earnings and although the US Fed continued …
Econosights – Should we worry about emerging markets? Key Points Emerging market equities have performed poorly since the beginning of the year. More recently, trade tensions between the US and China, a rising US dollar and issues in individual emerging market economies have hit emerging markets. The last emerging market downturn was in 2015 on the back of Chinese growth concerns, a devaluation in the Chinese Yuan and Fed interest rate hike fears. Emerging market …
Weekly Market Update 6 July 2018 Investment markets and key developments over the past week Trade war fears continued to cause nervousness over the last week, weighing on Chinese, Japanese and Asian shares generally but US and Eurozone shares rose partly on hopes for a resolution but also helped by good data and Australian shares also pushed higher helped by a rebound in Telstra. Bond yields were generally flat to down excepting in Italy where …
2017-18 saw strong returns for diversified investors – but there’s a few storm clouds around Key points 2017-18 saw strong returns for diversified investors, but it was a story of two halves with strong December half returns but more volatility in the past 6 months. Key lessons for investors from the last financial year include: turn down the noise around financial markets, maintain a well-diversified portfolio; be cautious of the crowd; and cash continues to …
