The impact of technology on the investment landscape
View from the dealing floor. Julian Edwards works on IG’s dealing floor: www.ig.com/au The investment landscape has changed over the last few decades as technology has worked its way into all aspects of the field. As one would expect, numerous advantages have spawned from these changes; financial statements that were once acquired by means of…
Existential risks to our planetary life-support systems
By Andrew Glikson We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet. – Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chief climate advisor to the German Government It is not news that we are over stretching our planetary support systems: we have known for some time. In a 2009 keynote paper in Nature titled “A safe…
The Dow 30 is the Greatest of All Ponzi Schemes
By Wim Grommen (with Lorimer Wilson) The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) Index – the oldest stock exchange in the U.S. and most influential in the world – consists of 30 companies and has an extremely interesting and distressing history regarding its beginnings, transformation and structural development which has all the trappings of what is…
Property bubble? That’s the theory, anyway
By Philip Soos, Deakin University As Australian housing prices have boomed over the last decade and a half, there has been much discussion over whether a bubble exists in the residential property market. More recently, the concern is the record-low interest rate of 2.5% may cause a housing bubble. Conspicuously absent in the debate over…
The Great Bank Bubble of 2013
Welcome to the Great Bank Bubble of 2013 is the title of a UBS research note sent to clients earlier this month. UBS believes that Aussie banks are at bubble valuations considering our lacklustre lending environment. Citibank analysts wholeheartedly disagree, running with the contradictory title: Popping Claims of an Australian Bank Share Price ‘Bubble.’ So…
Why the Federal Reserve is Digging an Ever-Deeper Hole
Apparently, policymakers at the Federal Reserve are having second thoughts about the wisdom of open-ended quantitative easing (QE). They should. Not only has this untested policy experiment failed to deliver an acceptable economic recovery; it has also heightened the risk of another crisis. The minutes of the January 29-30 meeting of the Fed’s Federal Open…
Is Rent Money, “Dead Money”?
By Wealth Foundations Rent is the price of housing accommodation The home building industry often promotes to potential young home buyers that rent money is “dead money” i.e. money down the drain. It encourages them to stop paying rent and, instead, use the money to pay off the mortgage on their own new home. I…
Beware Of Mining Stocks With Too Much Debt
Many Aussie miners are sitting on scary levels of debt – so when Fortescue Metals went into a trading halt over its burgeoning debt less than two weeks ago, investors in mining-related stocks watched closely. The day before the trading halt, Fortescue’s share price fell considerably and the ASX queried the drop. Some speculated that…
Gold stock recovery underway
Gold stocks have recovered sharply following last month’s panic-like capitulation plunge. But this embattled sector still remains incredibly cheap relative to prevailing gold levels, which drive gold miners’ profits and hence ultimately their stock prices. While it is very challenging psychologically to buy in deeply-out-of-favor sectors, the panic-like gold-stock bargains out there today are simply…
The Dingoes of the ASX 50
In 1602 a Dutch company instituted the practice of issuing ownership shares in the company in exchange for capital needed for expansion. The practice caught on and in 1611 the world’s first stock exchange was formed in Amsterdam. Approximately 15 minutes after the market opened for business, some Dutch math wizards began a search that…
