A Finsec View – The 2022 Wrap and 2023 Outlook
16th December 2022 'Tis the season when the world's strategists, economists and analysts gaze into their crystal balls and make predictions for the year ahead. And on the surface, at least, it looks like a pretty 'meh' year ahead, with both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley tipping the S&P 500 - the key benchmark for global share market sentiment - will finish 2023 either flat or slightly lower than 2022. But dig a little deeper, and the next 12 months (much like 2022) looks anything [...]
A Finsec View – 5 seismic shifts, Kaizen, The Dunning-Kruger effect, Director ID update and more
2nd December 2022 "Sorry" probably isn't the usual rhetoric to feature amongst the barbs traded in Parliament House. But, when Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe appeared before the senate economics committee on Monday, it was mea culpa all the way. It seemed a classic political move when Greens Treasury spokesman Nick McKim asked Lowe whether borrowers who had been "induced" into taking out mortgages based on the central bank's guidance were owed an apology. Surprisingly, it was not just one sorry, but three! "I'm certainly sorry if [...]
Weekly Market Update – 25th November 2022
Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets resumed their rally over the last week helped by further signs of a slowing in rate hikes from the Fed and a decline in bond yields. While the latter may partly reflect recession fears, lower bond yields also make shares more attractive from a valuation perspective. Reflecting this, US, Eurozone and Japanese shares rose for the week, but Chinese shares fell on Covid lockdown worries. The positive global lead saw Australian shares rise around 1.6% to [...]
A Finsec View – New inflation numbers, World’s most intimidating asset class, Hero to zero and more
18th November 2022 It's been a long time coming, but underlying US inflation finally appears to be easing. More on this in our market update below. One factor that will influence future inflation is demographics. This week, the world reached a milestone, with the global population officially hitting 8 billion. Australia has played its small part. New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show life expectancy in Australia actually increased during the COVID-19 pandemic (one of the few countries). From 2019-2021, life expectancy for both men [...]
Weekly Market Update – 11th November 2022
Investment markets and key developments Global shares surged over the last week helped by lower than expected US inflation for October, which is seen as taking pressure off the Fed and ultimately other central banks including the RBA (as US inflation led inflation in other countries including Australia on the way up). For the week US shares rose 5.9%, Eurozone shares rose 4.8%, Japanese shares gained 3.9% and Chinese shares rose 0.6% (helped by more signs of an easing in Covid rules). The positive global [...]
Weekly Market Update – 4th November 2022
Investment markets and key developments over the past week Shares saw another week of big swings, particularly with the Fed signalling that the peak in interest rates may be higher than previously expected. This saw US shares fall 3.3% for the week, but Eurozone shares rose 1.6% and Japanese shares rose 0.3%. Chinese shares rose 6.4% helped by talk of a relaxation in China’s zero Covid policy. Despite the poor global lead Australian shares managed to rise by 1.6% for the week helped by a somewhat [...]
A Finsec View – What investors, retirees, downsizers and SMSFs need to know about the budget
4th November 2022 In a macro sense, last week's Federal Budget was incredibly modest. Looking at the spending packages as a proportion of GDP they came in at just 0.1%. Really it was just about delivering on the election promises. In the context of previous budgets, in May 2022 spending initiatives came in at 1.7% of GDP, in 2021 during covid they were 4.1% of GDP and in 2020 5.5% of GDP - Even pre-covid the numbers were far larger. The reason of course for [...]
Weekly Market Update – 28th October 2022
Investment markets and key developments over the past week Sharemarkets continued to rally this week across most countries with Australia up 1.6%, (all sectors rose except consumer staples, energy and materials), US +3.9% (with all sectors up except tech communications) thanks to solid earnings results, Japan +0.8%, Eurozone +3.9% but China was weaker with shares down 5.4% as investors took the National Party Congress as a negative sign for Chinese growth prospects both from an economic and political point of view. Global yields moved down on [...]