24th March - SA Leaders Q&A session with Andrew Creaser "People are worried about their investments, and emotions are running high but what we do have is control over how we respond. The best financial advice in the wake of COVID-19? Don’t panic. How do you make informed decisions? What are the opportunities?"
The following is a note penned by our esteemed friends and allies in NSW, Stanford Brown Financial Advisers. It is well written, insightful but most importantly aligns with our own view and approach. ‘Wealth’ is income-generating capacity not share prices. Since share prices peaked on 20th February, the broad Australian share market has fallen by -35%, US is down -30%, and European markets are down by an average of -40%. The S&P500 index in the US is back to [...]
Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets remained under pressure over the last week as the number of coronavirus cases continued to surge, economic data started to weaken sharply and financial markets saw increasing dysfunction. The latter was highlighted by a blow out in corporate borrowing rates and a surge in government bond yields (as fund managers facing redemptions sold their liquid previously strong positions and there has been a rush into cash) and increasing difficulty [...]
U.S. President Donald Trump's national address from the Oval Office last night was intended to calm the public and investors. Regarding the latter, it appears to have fallen short of the mark. Why? The announcement of new U.S. restrictions on travel to and from Europe for 30 days is likely to act as a further drag on the fundamentals for airlines and other related travel industries. In addition, the offsetting stimulus measures that were announced such as loans to [...]
Investment markets and key developments over the past weekShare markets collapsed over the past week as concerns about the global economic impact of the coronavirus intensified, oil prices plunged as part of the secondary impact and policy responses by President Trump and the ECB were seen as not enough. Australian shares fell around 20% with energy shares leading the way down but selling was broad based with industrials, financials and property stocks hit hard given the impending impact on the local [...]
In times of extreme market volatility as we are experiencing with the COVID-19 pandemic it can be useful to take a step back and think about what has happened and how that might inform our preferred positioning going forward. Three important questions come to mind in terms of how we think about our portfolios and investment strategy: Valuations: Has the selloff improved the skew of potential returns on risky assets? Sentiment: Is there evidence of a capitulation or panic [...]
*** Please note: The below information was prepared as it stood, Friday 6th March 2020. While market conditions have changed significantly in the last 24 hours, the general sentiment and insights provided in this update remain current. We are monitoring the Covid-19 situation closely and will continue to provide updates as appropriate. This morning the below missive titled 'the way forward in four broad scenarios' hit our inbox. Considering just how fast the ground continues to move beneath us, [...]
By now you have all probably seen the news on the spike in reported cases outside of China. The coronavirus disease is apparently communicable even by those who are not showing signs of having it, which is making it harder to control. The number of new infections in Wuhan/Hubei and the rest of China are falling sharply (latest new infection rate was 630 in Hubei and 20 in the rest of China). However, markets are reacting to the jump [...]
Investment markets and key developments over the past week Global share markets mostly fell over the last week on ongoing concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, particularly after several US companies warned of disruptions to supply chains and sales. Chinese shares managed to rise though as China continued to role out new stimulus measures. Australian shares also rose slightly to hit a new record high helped by better than feared profit results and renewed talk of RBA interest rate cuts. Bond [...]
Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets generally rose over the last week, but gains were constrained by ongoing concerns about the coronavirus outbreak after China announced a large increase in new cases. US shares rose 1.6%, Eurozone shares rose 1.4% and Chinese shares gained 2.3%, but Japanese shares fell 0.6%. Reflecting the generally positive global lead Australian shares rose 1.5% leaving them just below their January record high with strong gains in financials, utilities, health [...]