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22 July 2024
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The world is entering a higher cost environment which will hit the profits of companies in many sectors. A key beneficiary will be commodities, where supply shortages are meeting increasing demand from AI and green energy.
As the world shifts away from one of artificially suppressed interest rates and cheap manufacturing, investors will need to carefully consider how companies are positioned to navigate the new higher-cost paradigm.
While capitalism has its downsides, no system allocates resources better, and the result is a complex, adaptive economy. But indexation has amplified the disconnect between valuations and fundamentals, with worrying implications.
The negative stock/bond correlation from 1998 until 2019 was the anomaly, not the positive relationship that began in 2022. In the years ahead, portfolio diversification should come increasingly from security and manager selection.
Decelerating inflation should provide a tailwind for high quality bonds but will likely hurt company margins and therefore stock prices. Uncompetitive companies facing elevated capital costs will be most at risk.
Portfolio construction requires actions, not just words, based on expected returns, volatility and correlations. We have not seen sufficient pain to believe we are at the bottom of the equity cycle.
As investors cram into ever narrower areas of the market with increasingly high valuations, Martin Conlon from Schroders says that sensible investing has rarely been such an uncrowded trade.
There is universal consensus that the Earth is experiencing climate change. Yet there is far more debate about how this will impact different economies across the globe. New research sheds more light on the winners and losers.
Claiming a tax deduction for personal super contributions can end in disappointment if it isn't done correctly. Julie Steed looks at common pitfalls and what is required for a successful claim.
The AI investment trend looks set to continue for years but there is only room for a handful of long-term winners. Dr Kevin Hebner also warns regulators against strangling innovation in the sector before society reaps the benefits.
Retirement is a time of great excitement but it is also one of uncertainty. This is hardly surprising given the daunting move from receiving a steady outcome to relying on savings and investments.
Investments in intangible assets are as crucial to many companies as investments in capital equipment. The different accounting treatment of these investments, however, weighs on reported earnings and could render ratios like P/E less useful for investors.
Financial commentators seem to have forgotten the leading cause of inflation: growth in the supply of money. Warren Bird explains the link and explores where it suggests inflation is headed.