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Thursday, 28 October 2021
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The long current positive run for the Australian stock market is unusual but not a warning of imminent demise. Previous long positive runs were not all followed by corrections but this one may end this month.
In 2020, new investors were keen to build wealth in the sharemarket and were actively investing to ‘buy the dip’. But as markets have rallied to new highs amid Covid doubts, investing patterns have changed.
As more Australians tilt their investments to global equities, they often overlook the exchange rate risk and fees. The move from US57 cents to US73 cents in six months shows the unhedged impact.
With signs that the economic recession will not be as deep as first feared, many companies will emerge strongly with robust business models. Here are the sectors with the best opportunities.
Traditional SMSF asset allocations to cash, banks and property are changing as ultra-low interest rates start to bite, and SMSFs take on more diversified equity and fixed interest exposures.
Profits results in August 2019 were overall poor, and other factors are in play that influence share prices. It is difficult to jump aboard a profit announcement and make money in the short term.
Look for a company whose prices are rising faster than inflation without customer churn, while leveraging its existing strong relationships to cross sell or up sell or some mix of both.
There’s a lot of talk of the WAAAX stocks causing fund underperformance, but they’re simply not big enough compared with choosing the wrong winners and losers among the large cap stocks.
Australian companies have a long and frustrating history of wasting billions of dollars of capital on overseas dreams, and institutional investors should be taking a harder line to protect their capital.
The Australian market again delivered strong returns in 2017-2018 with big sector differences, but there were large variations in global performance depending on the currency hedging strategy.
A Senate Inquiry is examining the need for a Modern Slavery Act, and many Australian companies are reporting on their activities due to their overseas business. It's the next front towards more sustainable investing.
Stock markets overall had a good year in FY 2016/2017 while bonds and defensives like listed property struggled. Looking to the future, what are the three most-asked questions facing investors?
We tend to forget that house prices often fall. Direct lending controls are more effective than rate rises because macroprudential limits affect the volume of money for housing leaving business rates untouched.
The survey drew a fantastic 2,000 responses with over 1,000 comments and polar opposite views on what is good policy. Do most people believe the home should be in the age pension asset test, and what do they say?
Any policy decision needs to recognise who is affected by a change. It pays to check the data on who pays taxes, who owns assets and who earns the income to ensure an equitable and efficient outcome.
With articles on the pensions assets test read about 40,000 times, 3,500 survey responses and thousands of comments, there was a lot of great reader participation. A few comments added extra insights.
It is hard to think of any area of widespread public concern where the same policies have been pursued for so long, in the face of such incontrovertible evidence that they have failed to achieve their objectives.
There are reasons to believe inflation will stay under control, and although we may see a slowing in the global economy, two companies should benefit from the themes of 'Stable Compounders' and 'Structural Winners'.