“The Intelligent Investor is one who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.” Benjamin Graham NZ Property Update House price inflation is rampant in NZ with +22% y.o.y. for the period ending February 2021. This sort of growth increases the risk of a major disruption to the wider NZ economy when the $1.5 trillion property bubble finally bursts. How could we address this rising risk? Enter Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern! The biggest news in the past month for NZ investors has to be the changes to property investing announced as part of Labour’s Housing Package by PM Ardern on the […]
If it looks like a bubble and smells like a bubble……. It is very likely that US share markets are now in “bubble” territory. Bubble means shares are trading at historically expensive valuations. At present, many longer-term valuation measures show that S&P500 shares are trading at valuations higher than levels reached in 2000. The record high valuations in 2000 were the precursor to the “Tech Wreck” which saw the S&P500 fall by 44.70% over the next 2.1 years. S&P500 valuations stretched Source: Bloomberg, Yale/Robert Shiller, John Hussmann, John Mauldin It is easy to point to the markets and conclude we […]
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Reflecting on a year to forget Remember in January 2020 when things were looking great and we were expecting a year of growth driven by fiscal support? How right we were, just not in the way we anticipated! How the year started: 4th January we started hearing about 44 cases of pneumonia in China. 11th January China releases the genome sequencing for the novel coronavirus. We believe this is a localised virus and nothing too serious to worry about. 23rd January the World Health Organisation visits Wuhan in China (a city the world knew nothing about at the time). NZ […]
The joy of low interest rates As we finish another month, we have further historical events occurring. This time it is closer to home, with 2-year & 5-year government bond yields falling into negative territory for the first time in history. In September, the 5-year NZ government bond rate went as low as -0.06%. This is down from the not so attractive 0.66% six months ago. NZ Yield Curve – 18th Sept 2020 Source: The Daily Shot This has also led to mortgage rates in New Zealand dropping, which in turn is throwing further fuel on an already overpriced NZ […]
Pay attention – we are in the middle of a historically significant event There is an old proverb, “May you live in interesting times”. This is falsely attributed to an English translation of a Chinese curse. The closest Chinese comparison to this saying is, “Better to be a dog in times of tranquillity, than a human in times of chaos“. Either way, there is no arguing that we do indeed live in interesting times. Since the start of the year, the world has changed in meaningful ways. We will focus below on the market related changes. Firstly, global share markets […]
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The markets appear fully recovered, but looks can be deceiving If you are watching the S&P500 you will know that as at the end of July, it was approximately 4% off its pre-Covid mid-February highs. If we dig a bit deeper however the index starts to tell a very different story. As at late-July, 186 of the S&P500 stocks, or 37% were showing a gain. The remaining 64% were still showing a loss since the start of the year. Delving deeper still we see that 226 or almost half of the S&P500 are still down at least 10% since the […]
Markets continue to defy gravity As US and NZ share markets test new highs the data from around the world keeps getting worse. Later in this month’s discussion we will make a case for why share values may not be as overpriced as we all believe, but first let’s review the worsening news. US Covid cases on the rise again As President Trump continues to understate the rising risks of Covid infections in the US and States continue to attempt reopening to get some semblance of growth back in the economy, the daily new cases in the US continue to […]
Things don’t look better, just less bad Less Bad No.1 At the start of this pandemic, governments around the world were relying on data out of China to determine the infection and fatality rates for Covid-19 and reacted accordingly. There was a high level of uncertainty and assumed high infection/fatality rates across a limited sample size, which did not allow for many different factors across nations such as smokers vs. non-smokers, health systems, living conditions demographics, etc. As more data has been collated, the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) has consistently dropped. Initially, it was thought the virus had an IFR […]