A new year can bring fresh ideas and brave new commitments that most of us will, unfortunately, simply forget about over the course of the year. The difference between those who are successful and those who aren’t is consistency and persistence. It takes commitment to stick to a plan in order to obtain success. Our […]
READ MOREGame of chicken
Are they MAD? – This is a monumental game of chicken. US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, are currently engaged in a monumental game of chicken as they drive their respective economies into a headlong conflict. The problem is that they are not just messing with their own lives, they are putting […]
READ MOREThe investor’s dilemma
Investing is not an easy game. Each time you purchase a share in a company you think is great value, there’s someone on the other side of the trade who thinks it’s overvalued. As investors, we face many dilemmas on a daily basis – valuations, future prospects for companies, economic conditions, politics and regulations; the […]
READ MORE“I feel a great disturbance in the force”
Obi Wan Kenobi wasn’t talking about the yield curve when he uttered these words, but his sense of foreboding has parallels with some of the commentary over the weekend in respect of the dreaded yield curve inversion. Without doubt, you will read and hear about this inversion over the coming days and it will be […]
READ MOREWinter is coming! – 2018 report card and 2019 outlook
Now that the kids are back at school, the roads and trains are full and Australia has kicked back into full capacity, it’s time to peer into our crystal ball again. Unlike President Trump, I am happy to admit I’m borrowing a famous quote from the hugely popular series ‘Game of Thrones’. But what is […]
READ MOREProperty Market – going, going, gone?
On 16 September 2018, 60 Minutes Australia aired a story warning of the impending crash in housing prices. In the story, Martin North, a data scientist, warned that we could soon see the same impact as the Ireland property bubble here in Australia and that property prices could fall as much as 40%, putting greater […]
READ MORE“No nation was ever ruined by trade”
Benjamin Franklin – 1774. Last financial year was a tale of two halves, the first half ending 31 December 2017 was one of a positive note as equity markets continued to trend higher based on a story of synchronised global growth, benign inflation and corporate tax cuts in the US. Unfortunately, the second half to […]
READ MOREItaly leans to the right
During quieter news periods, market volatility can increase as company information is replaced with speculation on trade wars, tax policies that may or may not pass and who will win the next election. Often these matters are not trivial and can impact upon companies. The problem is that we are usually dealing in speculation and […]
READ MORELook past the headlines
Whoa! slow down! Let’s get some perspective. The snippets above are just some of the thousands of ‘click-bait’ headlines from the online news sites in the last 48 hours. If they’re to be believed then we’re all doomed. Headlines Of the headlines above, my favourite one was ‘The Dow Jones falls the largest amount in […]
READ MORE2017 report card and 2018 outlook
“May you live in interesting times”. We do, and what a year it’s been. We witnessed the (“best ever attended”) inauguration of Donald ‘Tweet’ Trump, and then some 420 protest marches in the US and in a further 168 countries decrying his election. The United Kingdom formally triggered Brexit. We’ve witnessed escalating political tensions around […]
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