The China Threat
There are no shortage of worries for investors these days but at the top of the list is China. The following chart illustrates how important China has become for our Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The Bank of America Merrill-Lynch survey of international fund managers polls large funds with assets under management in excess of $708…
Online Businesses The Winners This Earnings Season
Investors are always looking for clues for hot stocks to buy and the recent flurry of earnings reports points to a potentially powerful indicator of future growth – online presence. It is no secret that online sales are on the rise globally. Some of Australia’s best performing stocks operate exclusively online and in many cases…
How Resource Limits Lead to Financial Collapse
Resource limits are invisible, so most people don’t realise that we could possibility be approaching them. In fact, my analysis indicates resource limits are really financial limits, and in fact, we seem to be approaching those limits right now. Many analysts discussing resource limits are talking about a very different concern than I am talking…
Markets Require Regulators Not Watchdogs
Markets require regulators. As Adam Smith, the champion of the invisible hand, notes in The Wealth of Nations, when individual interests are left unregulated they work to turn competitive markets into monopolies. But what happens when regulators meant to check individual interests fail to promote the public interest? Consider Australia’s banking sector. The banking royal commission has…
Mining Services and Construction Stocks with Strong Earnings Growth Forecasts
Many investors seek safety with the service providers of the “hot” products or commodities of the moment. In the face of booming commodity prices in iron ore or oil, common sense suggests investing in a company that provides services for multiple miners and oil operators provides a level of diversification that suggests less risk. Conventional wisdom advises…
Lessons From The Resurrection Of The Iron Ore Miners
Fueled by the insatiable appetite of the Chinese Government to build, build, build; ASX iron ore miners led Australia on an unprecedented mining boom, with the price of iron ore eclipsing US$180 per tonne in early 2011. The price softened in 2012, leading to some opining the boom was about to end, with others in the…
Breville Innovates Its Way To International Success
I admire small Australian companies that take on global markets and succeed in industries where the odds are stacked against them. Companies that deliver good results over long periods, innovate and take risks, and usually prove the doubters wrong. Breville Group is an example. The kitchen appliances maker is one of Australia’s great small-cap companies. Breville’s…
A Contrarian View of a Battered Mining Industry
Newcomers to share market investing searching for “how to” advice quickly learn that most investing strategies have mirror opposites. Value investors follow the maxim, “buy low, sell high”. The opposite strategy is growth investing, where the maxim is “buy high, sell higher”. While some might call these trading strategies rather than longer focused investing strategies, trend…
Buying on the Dip
While stock price fluctuations are to be expected, during dire and even simply uncertain economic conditions the fluctuations can be wild, some bordering on the irrational. Such fluctuations often present buying opportunities for investors with an appetite for risk. In today’s market there exists ample opinion to support both a Bear outlook and a moderately…
The Next Big Thing – The Gas Revolution And Stocks To Watch
As the global economic outlook remains uncertain and the purveyors of doom reign supreme, more people are taking their money out of equities and putting it into gold, bonds, term deposits, and perhaps even under the mattress or buried safely in the garden. Yet investing history seems to tell us equities win out in the…
