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16 September 2025
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The current bank turmoil should not be a GFC-type event, although the risk of tightening credit conditions is real. Volatile markets are an opportunity to buy strong, growing companies trading at attractive valuations.
The key issue that lies behind the banking turmoil is the constriction of credit supply that central banks are inducing amidst their assault on inflation. The withdrawal of liquidity finds out weaknesses in the system.
Central banks are unable to ignore the inflation in front of them, but underlying macro-economic conditions indicate that inflation may be transitory and the consequences of monetary tightening dangerous.
With bond rates and Reserve Bank actions driving equity markets and inflationary expectations, it pays to understand what is really happening in both central bank and commercial bank balance sheets.
Higher volatility, higher funding costs, US rate rises with AUD interest rates decoupling, Quantitative Tightening, maturing bond reinvestment flows all point to a difficult 2018.
A counter-view on why bond yields are so low, and how the market can still use and interpret what bonds are telling us. Plus Roger responds that different opinions make a market, and that's good.
It matters little if you are invested in property, shares or bonds, we have moved into a lower return environment. It's a time for caution in a world where debt and defaults are rising.
This period of ultra low interest rates and government-stimulated economies has created an overly optimistic view of world economic growth, which will have implications for future retirement savings returns.
The European Central Bank was reluctant to embrace a QE strategy following the GFC. But in late 2014 it was introduced to fight deflationary forces and boost growth in the euro-zone. The question is: will it work?
October 2014 marks the end of the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy it called ‘quantitative easing’. The Fed’s aim was to create inflation, increase bank lending and depress the US dollar to help exporters. Did it work?
Unemployment and inflation seem to be heading in different directions in Australia and the United States, but the outcomes for interest rates and equity markets might be the same.
A positive view on US growth but some concerns around possible inflation effects and the unwinding of QE. Growth may give a tailwind but it is rarely the most important factor determining market returns.
Each generation believes its economic challenges were uniquely tough - but what does the data say? A closer look reveals a more nuanced, complex story behind the generational hardship debate.
Australia could unlock smarter investment and greater equity by reforming housing tax concessions. Rethinking exemptions on the family home could benefit most Australians, especially renters and owners of modest homes.
This goes through the different options including shares, property and business ownership and declares a winner, as well as outlining the mindset needed to earn enough to never have to work again.
Everyone has a theory as to why housing in Australia is so expensive. There are a lot of different factors at play, from skewed migration patterns to banking trends and housing's status as a national obsession.
The creator of the 4% rule for retirement withdrawals, Bill Bengen, has written a new book outlining fresh strategies to outlive your money, including holding fewer stocks in early retirement before increasing allocations.
This AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. Just like fibre in 2000, shale in 2014, and cannabis in 2019, the technology or product is real but the capital cycle will be brutal. Investors beware.