The FinSec View

Issue: Friday 19 February 2021 Last week was GameStop; this week, it's Bitcoin with some similar themes - waves of money, speculation and a movement behind it. Thanks mainly to a tweet from Elon Musk, Bitcoin has risen more than 30% in just over a week and is currently sitting just above $US50,000. Tesla's explanation for their $1.5 billion plunge into the cryptocurrency - it had updated its investment policy to provide it with more flexibility to diversify and to [...]

Issue: Friday 5 February 2021 Welcome 2021 Traumatic events have a habit of etching themselves in our mind. We can remember where we were and what we were doing even if it was from thousands of miles away and we didn't have anything to do with it personally. For different generations this will mean different things. The GFC, the 9/11 bombings, Princess Diana's crash, JFK's assassination and so on but, for all of us 2020 will be one of those [...]

Issue: Friday 18 December 2020 In the words of Bob Dylan "Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the unexpected expected?" But what we weren't expecting... A pandemic on a global scale; Masks and social distancing our new normal; Children home-schooled; Borders closed; All gatherings and celebrations cancelled; The fastest bear market in history Businesses told to operate virtually or not at all; Almost 200 of the largest public companies in the US reaching zombie status; and Central banks the heroes, [...]

Issue: Friday 04 December 2020   The recession is officially over Adding to a year of wildly fluctuating data, figures released on Wednesday show the Australian economy grew by 3.3% in the July-September quarter. It's the largest quarterly increase since 1976 and comes after a 7% contraction in the April to June quarter, the largest quarterly fall on record. The growth spurt was powered by a rise in household consumption growing by 7.9%, the largest rise in the 60-year [...]

Issue: Friday 20 November 2020 It is hard not to be proud of the pragmatic and stoic way South Australians have responded to the state's hard lock-down. Perhaps not quite as much pride in the circumstances surrounding today's announcements and why we are now in a position to lift restrictions three days early... Regardless, we must count ourselves lucky, a few days is a far cry from the months our Melbourne friends and families endured. Only three confirmed cases [...]

US ELECTION SPECIAL EDITION: Friday 06 November 2020 A close race, but it would seem Joe Biden has it. Yet, with millions of votes still to be tabulated and Trump now calling for counting to stop, exactly when a winner will be declared, is still unclear. What is clear, is that this time it really seems to matter. With non-compulsory voting in the US, the historical challenge has always been to convince people to make the effort. Not this [...]

Issue: Friday 18 September 2020 'The Show Must Go On' ... As residents of #10 Greenhill Road, the middle of September represents show week and our cue to escape as a team for our annual business planning. This year (the first time in 100 years of The Royal Adelaide) the Ferris wheel did not turn, the show bags were regulated to supermarket shelves, and the silence (as a business, it is a noise we often begrudge) was deafening in [...]

Issue: Friday 04 September 2020 Australia Enters Recession Australia is officially in recession for the first time since 1991 after posting a 7% fall in GDP for the June quarter. The 'official' definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and the June contraction follows a 0.3% decline in the March quarter, bringing a remarkable run to an end. However, the data release revealed some bright spots. The national savings rate rose to 20% from 6% [...]