Protected: Traders’ Update
Protected: Traders’ Update
A Christmas Poll
Inflation suggests that the cost of living rises (nearly) every year. Following the impact of the Global Financial Crisis, some areas of the economy are flat, some have gone backwards and others are approaching previous high points. We are interested in how it is impacting the average person. Here is a quick poll for you…
Protected: Trader’s Update
Bank Interest Rate Rises
There has been much discussion in media about the Australian banks’ reactions to the Reserve Bank’s increase in the official cash rate to 3.75% on the 2nd December. The broad thrust of comment is that Westpac is being ‘unfair’ in raising their interest rates further than the level of the official rate rise. The other…
Protected: Traders’ Update
Be gentle on ‘Industry Funds’ – they know not what they do.
The front page of todays Australian Financial Review (AFR) includes an article titled “Unlisted assets drag down super fund returns”. In it, the returns of ‘Industry Funds’* is suggested as showing falling returns into a recovering market. This is entirely expected, and should not be a reason to argue against the ‘Industry Fund’ attraction to…
Superannuation remains Largely Unexplained
Todays Australian Financial Review (p3) carries an artile titled “Super funds warned” in which Jeremy Cooper (“chairman of the federal government’s review of the $1.2 trillion superannuation industry”) suggests that Australian super funds need to increase returns and gain greater scale to increase opportunities. The example given is “Two Canadian pension funds with a combined…
Comparing House and Share Prices
Many, many people get hung up on whether houses are better than shares as long term investments and vice versa. Logic would dictate that over the long term, houses are a depreciating asset requiring substantial capital to buy or maintain with high transaction costs, and therefore are likely to underperform listed equity, which should overcome these hurdles. However, this ignores key characteristics of the property market as well as issues specific to Australia…
