Oliver's Insights
Oliver's Insights
Review of 2018, outlook for 2019 – another cycle extension
December 7, 2018
2018 – a lot weaker than expected After the relatively low volatility and solid returns of 2017, the past year has seen almost the complete opposite with high volatility and poor returns. It started strongly in January but started to get messy from February. At a big picture level things were fine: global growth looks...Read More
Corrections, gummy bears and grizzly bears in shares
November 23, 2018
While global and Australian shares had a nice bounce from their late October lows – rallying about 5%, partly reversing their 10% or so top to bottom fall, they have since fallen back to their lows as the worries about US rates, bond yields, trade, tech stocks, etc, have morphed into broader concerns about global...Read More
Are shares expensive?
October 24, 2018
Introduction Some commentators claim shares are way overvalued and so a crash is inevitable. As always, it’s a lot more complicated, but given the current turbulence in share markets it’s worth having a look at whether share markets are expensive or not as a guide to how vulnerable we are to further falls. More broadly,...Read More
Australian capital city home prices have fallen for 12 months in a row and are down 4% from their peak. Most of the weakness relates to the previous boom time cities of Sydney and Melbourne but prices are continuing to fall in Perth and Darwin. Source: CoreLogic, AMP Capital This begs the questions: how far...Read More
Introduction Every so often shares go through rough patches. We saw this most recently around February on the back of US inflation and interest rate concerns and the start of US tariffs which saw US shares and global shares fall roughly 10% and Australian shares fall 6%. Shares mostly recovered – even getting through the...Read More
"Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom - Frank Zappa (and maybe some others)" It may seem that the worry list for investors is bigger and more confusing than ever before. Some of this may relate to US President Trump’s disruptive and “open mouth” approach as highlighted by the “trade war” and his frequent...Read More
Seven lessons from the Global Financial Crisis for investors
September 12, 2018
The period August to October is a time for anniversaries of financial market crises – the 1929 share crash, the 1974 bear market low, the 1987 share crash, the Emerging market/LTCM crisis in 1998, and of course the worst of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. The GFC started in 2007 but it was the...Read More
Five things you need to know about the Australian economy
September 6, 2018
For years now, many have told us that Australia is heading for an imminent recession. By contrast official forecasts have long been looking for several years of above trend growth. In the event neither has happened and we don’t see them happening anytime soon. Against this backdrop there are five things you should know about...Read More
For the last two calendar years the Australian dollar has defied our expectations for weakness. But after hitting $US0.81 in January it’s been trending down as US interest rates fell below the Australian cash rate, the threat of a US-driven trade war increased and it recently broke below a short-term range around $US0.74 and fell...Read More
Earlier this year the big fear was that inflation was going to surge led by the US and that this was going to drive aggressive interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and much higher bond yields, which in turn would pressure other asset classes. Such fears saw a significant correction in global share...Read More