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Thursday, 28 October 2021
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It's time for equity prices to more closely tie to a company’s underlying near-term earnings trajectory and financial strength. Despite the market trading at record levels, some stocks have been left behind.
Savers are making small decision after small decision that leads them away from investing and closer to outright speculating. Time will tell if this ends in a bloody climax or we all live happily ever after.
At some point, policymakers will turn to the task of deleveraging, to work off massive debt burdens built up during the pandemic. Australia is already ticking the boxes on many policies used in the past.
A global financial casino has been created where investors ignore realistic valuations in the low growth, high-risk environment. At some point, analysis of fundamental value will be rewarded.
It is better to miss a results bounce and buy after the company has delivered than it is to step on a landmine. With such uncertainty, avoid FOMO by following these result season investing tips.
Markets always come back to fundamentals, valuations and liquidity, even when faced with a global pandemic. The key question is whether liquidity can hold up the market as the economic storm hits.
While Australian businesses generally achieve returns below global comparisons, our Best 50 have delivered results well above the accepted world best practice level, and they come from a diversity of industries.
In many valuations, the ‘Golden Rule’ is being broken. Earnings growth is assuming the sort of strong economic activity that would trigger higher interest rates, yet investors are delinking the two.
Investors chasing high yielding stocks without considering the fundamentals risk falling into the 'income trap', where weak businesses are eventually forced to reduce their dividends.
An investor’s fundamental investment process should be adapted to take account of the psychology and emotion involved in making such decisions, including a disciplined approach to entering and exiting positions.
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'.