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Wednesday, 20 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 reporting season, companies must deliver their results and many issue guidance for the next year. The response often send prices up or down and the market may make swift and not well-considered decisions.
While hot stocks generate media coverage and attention from investors, for the overall health of the market, they are irrelevant. A few big companies drive the Australian market.
Every day, an expert writes somewhere about the adverse impact of a reduction in franking credits due to a lower company tax rate. This tax rate has no impact on the after-tax returns received by Australian shareholders.
The major banks and other large companies attract a lot of attention when they report profits of billions of dollars, but other measures of profitability show the big headline figures can be misleading.
When you've been around long enough to have witnessed financial disasters, you wonder at the exuberance of youth embracing the great unknown. Are you missing out or will being old and tired eventually prevail?
The RBA Governor says rising house prices are due to "the design of our taxation and social security systems". The OECD says "the prolonged boom in house prices has inflated the wealth of many pensioners without impacting their pension eligibility." What's your view?
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.