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Stocks, Sectors & the Economy
Read more: Stocks, Sectors & the EconomyAs the virus drags on, economies start to look bleak. Investors who rode the markets down to the depths of March and back out again, start to think… ‘None of this makes sense, surely the market is going down again.’ News lately hasn’t been positive. Wave two condemns Victorians to house arrest, and a seemingly never-ending wave continues to plague the US. So how do some stockmarkets keep moving up? Or at the minimum, keep levitating above where you think common sense dictates they should be? Government and Central Bank stimulus explains some of it. More importantly, the phrase ‘the…
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2020 March Quarter Review
Read more: 2020 March Quarter ReviewEconomic Overview The spread of COVID-19 had a significant impact on global economies and investment markets in the March quarter. Rarely does any single issue wholly dominate economic and market data for a quarter. Yet COVID-19 arrived and wiped away focus on any other issue. Apart from the oil war, which itself was relegated to almost irrelevant, there was essentially no other theme that had an influence on shaping the quarter globally. In the US, confirmed cases of Covid-19 rose from 150 to over 100,000 between the first and last weeks of March. Jobless claims increased by over three million…
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Defining Adviser Alpha
Read more: Defining Adviser AlphaAlpha. In an investment sense it means how much better your returns were against a specific benchmark. If you were holding an ASX small cap fund and it returned 12% while the ASX small cap index returned 10%, your alpha is 2%. This can also work in reverse. Your fund returns 8% while the index returned 10%, well you’ve got negative alpha of 2%. The financial industry has long been attempting to get to the bottom of what alpha is within financial advice. Someone pays a financial adviser X amount, does that person derive more in value from that advice…
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2018 Year in Review
Read more: 2018 Year in ReviewEconomic Overview Global equities posted sharp declines in the December quarter, delivering their worst yearly performance in seven years largely on the back of the final three months. The major concerns were global trade, slowing economic growth and the US Federal Reserve’s plans for further interest rate rises. Government bond yields generally fell (prices rose), reflecting the broad uncertainty. In the US, the US-China trade dispute also continued to hamper investor optimism. The Federal Reserve (Fed) raised interest rates in December on continued stability in economic data. The labour market remained extremely strong. However, the central bank grew otherwise more…
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2018 September Quarter Review
Read more: 2018 September Quarter ReviewEconomic Overview Economic growth and earnings data remained robust during Q3, and this ultimately overshadowed simmering concerns around the escalating US-China trade war. The US initially targeted $34 billion of Chinese products with a 25% tariff in early July, while monetary policy tightened in the US. Markets were mostly positive in developed countries, but there was significant volatility in some emerging markets. Commodities struggled against a strengthening US dollar, while energy continued to rise with the prospect of sanctions on Iran. In the US, ongoing growth and strong employment figures allowed the Federal Reserve to increase the federal funds rate…
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