Share markets fell further over the past week in nervous trade ahead of significant event risk over the next few weeks which starts with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s address in Jackson Hole and then shifts to the ECB and Europe. Shares and other risky assets have rallied on the hope of policy action to bring […]

Key points The mining investment boom still has another year or two to go but its peak is starting to come into sight & the best has probably been seen in terms of commodity prices. While there is the risk of a timing mismatch around the end of the investment boom in 2014 and as […]

Headline developments of the past week There were a number of positives for growth investments over the past week and this has generally seen further gains in shares and a back up in bond yields in major countries. Economic data is generally coming in better than feared, German Chancellor Merkel has backed ECB President Draghi’s […]

Key points Brazil, India and China have slowed sharply on the back of weakness in advanced countries, the lagged effect of past monetary tightening and structural constraints.
 While their long term growth potential has been reduced a bit, emerging countries still offer better long term growth prospects than Europe, the US and Japan given a […]

Headline developments of the past week The news on the policy front out of Europe over the past week has been pretty quiet. ECB officials have reaffirmed their determination to act and its clear the ECB has the support of the German Government. What ECB President Draghi has put on the table amounts to a […]

Headline developments of the past week Both the Fed and the ECB disappointed markets with a lack of immediate action. However, both promise of action to come if needed, so its not nearly as bad as the initial market reaction following their meetings suggests. ECB President Draghi basically confirmed a plan to buy bonds in […]

Key points While rolling ten year periods occasionally see shares lose to bonds and cash, this is rarely the case over 20 year, and has never been the case over 40 year, periods. The high returns from cash and bonds over the last 30 years or so won’t be repeated as starting point yields are […]

After the surge in Australian house prices from the mid 1990s into last decade my view was that while the risks of a sharp fall back in house prices were high, the most likely scenario was an extended period of range bound house prices in real terms. If anything most of the surprise has been […]

The big picture • If you went back five years ago, and someone told you one of the most anticipated events in 2012 would be an election in Greece, you would have had doubts about their sanity. But so it is. The first Greek election didn’t produce a clean result with no single party or […]

Key points > It is not a foregone conclusion Greece will leave the euro. > The cost of exit would be very high for Greece & Europe.  > The best way to minimise this cost would be to guarantee Euro-zone bank deposits, recapitalise troubled banks and for the ECB to engage in aggressive monetary easing. […]

Key points > While the global economy has been ‘muddling through’ in the face of public debt problems over the last few years, this is still the most likely scenario going forward.  > Alternative scenarios involve a return to global recession and/or deflation (as bond markets are factoring in) or a surge in global inflation. […]

Yet again the European debt crisis is spiralling out of control and Euro-zone policy makers are doing what they always do – waiting for everything to go to the brink before acting. Worries that Europe might actually go over the brink combined with soft global economic data, has seen investors head for safety with share […]