Oliver's Insights
Oliver's Insights
The RBA provided no surprises following its April board meeting leaving the official cash rate on hold at 1.5%.The RBA remains more confident regarding global growth, sees Australian economic growth as moderate, regards the labour market as being mixed, sees a gradual rise in underlying inflation and continues to see conditions in the housing market...Read More
A further 21 great investment quotes
March 29, 2017
The basics of successful investing are timeless and some investors (often the best) have a knack of encapsulating these into a sentence or two that brings them to life in a way that’s easy to understand. Over the last few years I have written two insights on investment quotes I find useful (see “21 great...Read More
“It’s not what you own that gets you into trouble, but what you owe.” Excessive debt tends to be at the centre of most scare stories regarding the investment outlook – whether they relate to China, public debt in developed countries, corporate debt in the US or Australian household debt. The standard debt related scare...Read More
The Australian housing market – what are the key issues
March 15, 2017
The cooling in the Sydney and Melbourne property markets evident in late 2015 in response to macro prudential tightening deployed by APRA has proved ephemeral. Price gains have reaccelerated and auction clearance rates & lending to property investors have rebounded. Over the last five years Sydney dwelling prices have risen a ridiculous 73% and Melbourne...Read More
The long running soap opera around whether the Eurozone will break up is now into its eighth year! In 2015 all the focus was on the latest Greek tantrum and last year the big fear was that the populist/nationalist Brexit vote and Trump victory would lead to a surge in support for populist parties across...Read More
For the last few years we have heard constant predictions of a recession in Australia as the mining boom turned to bust and a housing bust was seen to follow. Some even went so far as to say that an imminent recession was “unavoidable”. Those fears intensified after the September quarter GDP data showed the...Read More
A year ago there was a long global worry list and high on that list was China. A nearly 50% collapse in Chinese shares, uncertainty about the Renminbi, slowing Chinese growth, fears of a massive oversupply of residential property and uncertainty about the intentions of Chinese policy makers had left many convinced China was heading...Read More
It’s now a decade since the first problems with US sub-prime mortgages started to appear and nearly eight years since share markets hit their global financial crisis lows. From those lows in 2009 lows US shares are up 239%, global shares are up 167% and Australian shares are up 80% (held back by relatively higher...Read More
Is Donald Trump’s honeymoon with investors over?
February 2, 2017
Since the US election last November US and global shares rallied around 8% and Australian shares rallied around 12% to their recent highs. Related to this the US dollar, bond yields and some commodity prices also pushed significantly higher. Optimism regarding Donald Trump’s pro-growth policies were not the only factor playing a role in this...Read More
2017 – a list of lists regarding the macro investment outlook
January 25, 2017
Despite a terrible start to the year and a few political surprises along the way, 2016 saw good returns for diversified investors who held their nerve. Balanced super funds had returns around 7.5%, which is pretty good given inflation was just 1.5%. 2017 is commencing with less fear than seen a year ago but there...Read More