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22 December 2024
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As long-term rate expectations fall while recessionary risks increase investors should focus on liquidity, strong balance sheets and cash flow, and avoid highly volatile and speculative assets according to VanEck’s latest quarterly economic outlook.
Global markets were dragged down in 2022 by the trifactor of multi-decade high inflation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s COVID-zero policy. While almost every major asset class took a sizeable hit last year, Australian equities presented a different story.
Many investors are set to feel the brunt of the great paradigm shift that reared its head last year, with central bank tightening likely to finally see significant impacts. However, pockets of opportunity abound.
Investors are deep in the inflation era. The question is, how deep? Are we up to our knees, our waist or our necks? And is the depth subsiding?
The Australian equities market is one of the most concentrated by stock and sector. The universe is also small relative to global markets. This paper shows that these nuances present challenges when assessing factor strategy efficacy.
Investors are already feeling the bear market blues, but it's wise to remember that bear markets are normal and tend to be short-lived. On the plus side, they present opportunities for those who know where to look.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.