China’s Censorship Anaconda Awakens
US companies and executives are increasingly taking strong stances on local policy matters such as health care and gun control; however, until recently they had largely avoided scrutinising China’s position on free speech and human rights. As the Hong Kong protests enter their twentieth week, US businesses across a range of industries have found themselves […]
Chris Demasi on growth & volatility
Chris Demasi, our portfolio manager discusses where he sees growth opportunity in volatile markets on ‘Bloomberg Markets.’ (Source: Bloomberg)
Is monetary policy in the US about to get easier?
While most people would point to the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower its policy interest rate this week as an indication that monetary conditions will gradually soften, we believe the central bank’s involvement in a lesser-known corner of financial markets a day earlier could portend a more significant action in order to restore easy monetary […]
Our take on the current market volatility
Commsec’s Tom Piotrowski interviews our Chief Investment Officer, Andrew Macken, about the current market volatility. Andrew shares his analysis of the current economic scenario in the wake of Brexit, US-China relations and various other macro economic factors. Have a look at the video now to gain some valuable insights by clicking here.
As the range gets wider, investing gets harder
There are lots of things that could happen; but only one thing that will happen. This is one of the better articulations out there of the concept of risk. Understanding risk is at the core of any investment because substantially all investments could result in a range of possible outcomes. Sometimes that range is narrow […]
Customers Don’t Grow on Trees
Firms, at their core, sell products and/or services to customers. Often it costs money to build awareness of the product or service you’re selling, sometimes small sums, sometimes large. It’s useful to think of this through the lens of a metric called customer acquisition cost (CAC). We will look at why this calculation is both […]
The Yield Paradox
It is well known that interest rates and bond yields are extremely low, so-low in fact that some of the world’s largest countries (Germany, France, Japan) and companies (Apple, Merck, McDonald’s) have NEGATIVE yielding bond. In other words, if you were to lend the German government money for 10 years (i.e. purchase a 10-year Bund) […]
Europe’s only hope
Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008/09, the Eurozone has been in the midst of a multi-year debt crisis. In many countries, including France, Italy, Spain, Portugal – and of course Greece – government indebted increased to such elevated levels that the prospect of a genuine “debt trap” was real. By debt trap, we […]
Is Trump winning the trade war?
Shortly after the high-stakes meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit resulted in a temporary ceasefire and agreement to resume trade negotiations, Trump was taking to the airwaves to declare that the U.S. was winning the trade war and “winning big”. Few would consider an agreement to resume negotiations to be […]
The investing world has changed (again)
What a difference a few weeks makes. Throughout the months of May and June, global inflation expectations fell suddenly, dragging down global bond yields. The fall coincided with a break-down in the talks between US and Chinese trade negotiators as well as an increase in US tariffs on Chinese imports. Market-implied 10YR inflation expectations Source: […]
