Apr 08
Source: www.zerohedge.com Earlier in the week Zero Hedge showed the above chart and unfortunately there maybe something to it as it appears the outlook may be deteriorating. Whilst policymakers haven’t started to dither in obvious ways at the moment, with the Spanish government announcing increased austerity measures which will only make their economy worse, there …
Mar 20
Well…not normal yet. The shorter part of the curve suggests the market is expecting another two 25bps cuts by the RBA but with the Euro sovereign crisis well and truly looking much better its highly unlikely there’ll be any cuts soon. Whilst there’s plenty of evidence that shows the Euro sovereign crisis has improved, nothing …
Feb 07
I was just reading the latest riveting story on bonds in this month’s Asset magazine and I feel compelled to share an example of misinformation that tends to annoy me a little (I know its probably a little pathetic but anyway)…John O’Brien, van Eyk – Head of Research, apparently said that many of the great …
Jan 10
Source: RBA The above chart shows pretty much what happened to the outlook for the Austrlaian economy and why bonds were the best investment for the year. It shows the longer terms yields (3 years and above) dropping by up to 200bps thus providing very large capital gains for bond investors who had the courage …
Dec 11
I’m not completely familiar with all details coming out of the Euro summit a couple of days ago so I thought I’d cheat a little and point out some conclusions from a couple of my preferred econobloggers, Paul Krugman and Felix Salmon. Firstly Krugman… European stocks are up today, and I have no idea why. …
Nov 10
The reasons why the Euro is a failing concept have certainly been well documented and spoken about. Basically, without a fiscal union, monetary policy and a single currency are instruments that are too blunt to aid struggling countries when other countries are experiencing different levels of economic growth and/or inflation across Europe. For example, the German economy, which …
Oct 29
The last month has shown a bit of a bounce-back in the sharemarkets but as the above yield curve indicates, so far its more of a dead cat bounce and there’s a long way to go. The yield curve is still negatively sloping to beyond two years indicating the market is expecting a few rate …
Sep 22
…and US futures not looking much better. The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 4.4% at the time of writing; UK, German, French, and Spanish equity markets are all down more than 4.3%. The S&P500 futures are down around 1.5% and Australia’s SPI200 is also down around 1%. Plenty of downside risk yet whilst politicians kick …
Sep 10
With the US heading towards recession and the Euro Sovereign Crisis getting ugly again where to invest one’s funds has never been tougher. Australian bonds yields are around 4%, meaning they are on PE ratio of 25 which compared to local and global shares, which are currently on forward PEs of around 10, are very …
Aug 19
Obviously a pretty difficult investment environment at the moment. Markets tanking again overnight and following on in Australia this morning. Watching Billabong drop around 25% this morning demonstrates the benefits of diversification…I’d hate to be an adviser with an overweight Billabong position in my client’s portfolio. Anyway I digress. Volatility in the sharemarkets will continue for many …