Updates & Review

Sharemarket Lessons from past Crises

Since mid-January, the Coronavirus COVID-19 has increasingly dominated daily news. For a time, the spread of the virus didn’t dent investor sentiment. Indeed, on February 20, the key indexes of US and Australian share prices hit all time highs; bond yields had held fairly steady; exchange rates were said to be “boring”; and in Sydney […]

Update on the current correction in Equity Markets

We are seeing a major correction occurring in all global equity markets as investors try to assess the impact of the coronavirus on corporate profits. The Dow Jones is now down over 12% from the peak it reached on the 12th February as near panic grips many markets. The extensive factory closures and travel bans […]

Coronavirus and You

The Corona Virus. For weeks there was calm. Then suddenly there was panic. Admittedly, it was surprising. Markets have been moving upwards without a hitch for a while and initially they shrugged the Coronavirus off. Australian investors, getting little joy from cash, may have been pushing into the market. The US has been offering solid […]

Walking in to the Spider’s Web

Why do we do the things we do? If only there were simple answers! When it comes to investing, sometimes we have the simple answers. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour has dug into some of the mindsets and behaviours of investors who have been defrauded. Titled ‘Profiling Victims of Investment Fraud: […]

2019 Christmas Closure Dates

The legacy of unprofessionalism

Trust comes naturally to some professions. Take a survey from any country and there will inevitably be a consistent top three in the trusted category: nurses, firefighters and doctors. It makes sense. At their core we have to trust these professions with our health and our safety. Doctors and nurses also provide guidance and comfort […]

Media Omission and the market

“The markets haven’t been very good lately,” the investor said with some concern. “Should we be doing something?”   Markets were off their highs. Trump was being Trump. August had been one of those months. Off nearly 5% in a week. Sideways for the next three. A slight upward burst at the end, but the […]

Optimisim is the only realism

A ‘3% plunge on the Dow Jones Index’ is ‘sparking fear that the US is on the verge of another recession as ‘more than than 60 billion of wealth was burnt’ on the Australian sharemarket. One analyst said there was ‘a plausible scenario in which the U.S. stock market now collapses by another 70%’ and former US Treasury Secretary, Larry […]

Five Lessons from Goldsky

12 July 2019   Over the weekend, the Australian Financial Review profiled one of the victims (story behind paywall) of the alleged Goldsky ponzi scheme, along with ASIC’s apparent lack of action in shutting Goldsky down before too many unsuspecting investors were drawn in. We briefly wrote about Goldsky last year, highlighting several sportspeople had seemingly been duped […]

Lower Interest Rates Can Guarantee One Thing

5 July 2019   Australia appears to be stuck in an economic malaise. Household debt has never been higher, wage growth is stagnant, gross domestic product per capita (everyone’s share of the economic pie) has been shrinking. And this was with interest rates already at record lows. Solution? Cut interest rates further. Will it work? […]