Michael

Author's details

Date registered: January 28, 2012

Latest posts

  1. Random Thoughts on Cryptocurrencies at a Random time of the year — December 31, 2022
  2. Investment Philosophy … a short primer — June 6, 2022
  3. A Few ESG Investment Thoughts — June 28, 2021
  4. Approaching the Zero bound — May 22, 2020
  5. Worry about Valuations??? … yeah, a bit … — April 24, 2020

Most commented posts

  1. The disappearing credit spread…US now at pre-GFC levels — 6 comments
  2. ASX200 to go through 5000!!! — 4 comments
  3. A Must Read on “The Economic State of Australia” — 4 comments
  4. Tonight should be a turning point…either way — 3 comments
  5. Asset Allocation that considers Asset Weighted Returns — 3 comments

Author's posts listings

Feb 06

Sharemarket exuberance reflected in higher earnings forecasts…not

Categories:

Equities, General Investment

by

Source: RBA The RBA released its chart pack today and there are few charts I always like to look and in recent months its been the above, Forecast Earnings per Share. Its very difficult to see but the update to this chart shows a tiny movement sideways…so…its the first time for quite a few months …

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Jan 11

Australian Government Bond Yield Curve…still barely moving but…

Categories:

Economy, Equities, Europe, Fixed Interest, Government Bonds, Interest Rates, Yield Curve

by

Source: RBA, Delta Research & Advisory I had no idea that I’ve only posted twice since November, so here I am again with my favourite chart, the Australian Government Bond Yield. As the above chart shows, over the past couple of months, yields have increased on average around 20bps across the longer end of the …

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Dec 18

Australian Government Bond Yield Curve…maintains its trading range

Categories:

Economy, Fixed Interest, Government Bonds, Interest Rates, Yield Curve

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Source:RBA, Delta Research & Advisory  As the title of this post suggests, no real significant movement over the past month or since the RBA dropped its cash rate down by 25bps. The yield curve has improved marginally but overall its still within its trading range that was more or less set between May and June …

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Dec 08

Some Bond Return Distribution Stats

Categories:

Corporate Bonds, Fixed Interest, General Investment, Investment Strategy

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Source: Mornngstar Direct, Delta Research & Advisory The above chart shows distributions of excess monthly returns over the UBS Bank Bill index from July 2000 to November 2012 for four different indexes that more or less represent the different strategies a bond portfolio can accept… Citi AusBiig 1-3 Yr index … representing short duration Citi …

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Nov 29

Investing in Asia…a wild ride irrespective of its economy

Categories:

Equities, Managed Funds, Portfolio Construction

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I just did an interview with Money Magazine about investing in Asia and I have to admit that it is one of the most popular requests I’ve had in recent years from advisers and/or their clients. The main reason for the request is that investors want exposure to the strong Asian economic growth story (which …

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Nov 17

Life Expectancy Myths and Facts…and should we increase the pension age

Categories:

Retirement Income, Superannuation

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This week I read a couple of articles on US Life Expectancy trends that got me curious about the situation in Australia…the articles were written by Paul Krugman and Aaron Carroll and basically implied that life expectancies aren’t increasing as much as everyone thinks and if you think that the age pension age should be …

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Nov 15

Australian Government Bond Yield Curve…certainly not going up

Categories:

Fixed Interest, Interest Rates, Yield Curve

by

Source: RBA I’ve uploaded the above chart in preparation for a presentation I’m giving tomorrow on portfolio construction. Anyway, the message isn’t really a great deal different from previous posts commenting on the Government bond yield curve. Namely, Interest rates are very low…you should be able to get some nice low fixed interest rates for …

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Nov 09

Beating the Inefficient Fixed Interest Benchmark

Categories:

Fixed Interest, Investment Strategy, Portfolio Construction

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Its widely agreed that size-weighted fixed interest benchmarks are a poor construct when it comes to creating the optimal fixed interest portfolio. The logic from most people goes along the lines of “why would I accept the index as optimal and overweight my portfolio with the biggest issuers because they are the riskiest and more likely to default …

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Nov 09

Managed Volatility…the next popular equity strategy

Categories:

Equities, Financial Planning, General Investment, Investment Strategy, Managed Funds, Portfolio Construction

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There’s a brief article in today’s Investor Daily News that comments on “Managed Volatility” being the strategy to maximise returns…article here. I have to admit that I believe this strategy will be one of the new trends in equity focused managed funds over the next 12 months or so. Empirical evidence over the years the …

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Nov 08

Does Value offer much Value? … this is a discussion on equities performance

Categories:

Equities, Financial Planning, General Investment, Investment Strategy, Managed Funds

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Source: MorningstarDirect The above chart shows the performance of the MSCI Australia Value index versus the MSCI Australia Growth index over the last 12 months (in fact through to close of trading yesterday). There’s obviously a hug divergence in performance as the Value index has returned more than 21% whilst the Growth index has barely …

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