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Don Stammer

Why we’re talking about 'secular stagnation'

Secular stagnation can result from a sustained lack of demand or low growth in productivity, and can create low or negative investment returns. Could this happen in Australia?

Investors need to allow for future cycles

Economic and investment market cycles do not make for a comfortable ride when making investment decisions and they’re not about to disappear despite numerous smoothing attempts. Face it, cycles just happen.

Liquidity is abundant despite QE wind down

Despite the Federal Reserve's tapering of its QE policy, liquidity in developed economies will remain abundant with the major central banks adding another USD1 trillion in 2014. But watch for global inflation.

Happy 30th, $A float best policy change in post-war era

Let's celebrate the positive effects of a floating exchange rate and the way it adjusts to make economic policy more effective. With some exceptions, a floating currency acts as a shock absorber to cushion volatility.

Nominal and real interest rates matter in different ways

Around the world, real interest rates are now unusually low or even negative. The hunt for real yield that’s become a preoccupation of investors is likely to remain a dominant feature of investment markets for several years at least.

The consequences of sustained budget deficits

The Federal Government should run balanced budgets over the economic cycle, otherwise uncertainties build up and costs are imposed because the bills still have to be paid somehow.

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Investment strategies

9 lessons from 2024

Key lessons include expensive stocks can always get more expensive, Bitcoin is our tulip mania, follow the smart money, the young are coming with pitchforks on housing, and the importance of staying invested.

Investment strategies

Time to announce the X-factor for 2024

What is the X-factor - the largely unexpected influence that wasn’t thought about when the year began but came from left field to have powerful effects on investment returns - for 2024? It's time to select the winner.

Shares

Australian shares struggle as 2020s reach halfway point

It’s halfway through the 2020s decade and time to get a scorecheck on the Australian stock market. The picture isn't pretty as Aussie shares are having a below-average decade so far, though history shows that all is not lost.

Shares

Is FOMO overruling investment basics?

Four years ago, we introduced our 'bubbles' chart to show how the market had become concentrated in one type of stock and one view of the future. This looks at what, if anything, has changed, and what it means for investors.

Shares

Is Medibank Private a bargain?

Regulatory tensions have weighed on Medibank's share price though it's unlikely that the government will step in and prop up private hospitals. This creates an opportunity to invest in Australia’s largest health insurer.

Shares

Negative correlations, positive allocations

A nascent theme today is that the inverse correlation between bonds and stocks has returned as inflation and economic growth moderate. This broadens the potential for risk-adjusted returns in multi-asset portfolios.

Retirement

The secret to a good retirement

An Australian anthropologist studying Japanese seniors has come to a counter-intuitive conclusion to what makes for a great retirement: she suggests the seeds may be found in how we approach our working years.

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