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Tuesday, 21 September 2021
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In the wake of persistent inflation, the Fed may jams down hard on the monetary brakes, leading to upward moves in bond yields. There may be a significant correction in equity markets, but what would the RBA do?
The inflation genie is still in the bottle. While wage growth remains low and the US Fed maintains current settings, we should expect the RBA's accommodatory approach to continue.
The refusal of both sides of politics not only to adopt ‘microeconomic reform’ but in some cases reverse reforms, looms as a bigger driver of unemployment than any failure to fine-tune macro or monetary policy.
In a recent speech, US Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen signalled that 'unconventional' monetary policy actions by central banks are likely to be 'normal' for many years.
Given how difficult it is to forecast statistics such as GDP, employment or inflation, investors should ignore macroeconomics. Even if forecasts were accurate, they are not very useful for valuing shares.
The RBA follows a fairly standard formula when drafting its interest rate announcements each month and a keen observer might detect a change in view before an actual change in interest rates.
The US Fed has finally lifted interest rates as anticipated, but from here it's especially difficult to predict future rate changes given that current economic conditions would normally dictate lowering rates.
The lending patterns of households and businesses, when compared against GDP and disposable income, can provide useful insights into where the economy is headed.
Who knew? With some surprise results, the Government is on unexpected firm ground in asking people to draw on all their assets in retirement, although the comments show what feisty and informed readers we have.
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?
It's a remarkable statistic. In any year since 1875, if you had invested in the Australian stock index, turned away and come back eight years later, your average return would be 120% with no negative periods.
Never stand between Australian households and an uncapped government programme with $3 billion in ‘free money’ to build or renovate their homes. But excess supply is coming with an absence of net migration.
Picking macro trends is difficult. What may seem logical and compelling one minute may completely change a few months later. There are better rewards from focussing on identifying the best companies at good prices.
Some high-quality companies have emerged even stronger since the onset of COVID and are well placed for outperformance. We call these the ‘COVID Opportunists’ as they are now dominating their specific sectors.