The country’s most important bean counters, sorry, chief financial officers, are surveyed by Deloitte and here were the interesting findings: Two-thirds of Australian CFOs predict a slow and stable recovery 28 per cent predict a quicker ‘V’ shaped recovery 65 per cent of CFOs are finding credit easier to access 93 per cent expect lending […]

With the Goldman Sachs story — no, drama — now spreading from Wall Street to Germany and the UK, the next local question has become — could it become an Aussie issue? And this comes as Nouriel Roubini is up to his usual tricks of spreading fear to try to make his predicted ‘disaster movie’ […]

One of my guests on SWITZER on the Sky News Business Channel last night was apologetic for being a cautious investor right now suggesting it didn’t make for interesting TV. I corrected him and it did make great TV — the lessons were a ripper as well as a must adhere to for all investors. […]

Ahead of the May Federal Budget, more economists are now thinking the month could usher in the overdue pause by the Reserve Bank with their rush to the so-called normal level of interest rates. And it therefore makes it timely to see what parts of the Aussie economy are doing well, and those which are […]

Today the market is bound to follow Wall Street’s negative lead following the charging of Goldman Sachs by Securities Exchange Commission. This could be a trigger from left-field that could cause a market correction. My guess is that there will be a sell-off but a not a correction of 10 per cent. The negatives of […]

Another great day for the bulls with Google reporting strongly on Wall Street and the Yanks getting another good economic report on manufacturing. Good bordering on great The Philadelphia Fed said its manufacturing index rose to 20.2 in April from 18.9 in March. This is just another better-than-expected economic report. This follows the Empire State […]

It’s significant that on the day that my old UNSW colleague, Steve Keen, starts his walk from Canberra to Mt Kosciuszko, wearing a T-shirt which reads — “I was hopelessly wrong on house prices. Ask me how.” — Wall Street finished up over 103 points at 11,123.11. That’s five days in a row for the […]

Last night on my program, SWITZER on Sky Business, BT’s chief economist Chris Caton said he thought the S&P/ASX 200 would get to 5250 this year and he has stuck to this number for quite some time. He also said he believed in the US recovery that can make his market index call end up […]

Is the Reserve Bank starting to crack on interest rates? Maybe we won’t we see interest rates go up four more times this year? That was my hopeful conclusion following an interesting comment from Guy Debelle, the Assistant Governor of the RBA to a parliamentary committee yesterday. And it came when new home loan figures […]

The Switzer Stocks Scoreboard looks back at the week that was in money, economics and business ahead of the start of reporting season in the USA this week. The company profit results and outlook statements could make or break Wall Street’s drive above the Dow 11,000 level and beyond. On Friday, the Dow Jones index […]

Two troubling things have driven the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to make this questionable decision to raise interest rates again. One is rising house prices and second, the Bank’s board thinks we have a terms of trade shock that’s going to ‘drown’ poor little Australia with income! Too much income when unemployment is so […]

I know the doomsday merchants trying to talk down the stock market are giving it another shot after 13 months of stock market gains and one guy tried to point to today as a sign that a sell-off is in the wind. Call me an economist but I just can’t buy this bad news story […]