China/US trade war – He said, Xi said Coming into the US mid-term elections (where the Republicans lost control of House of Representatives to the Democrats) President Trump’s rhetoric was strongly anti-China. Post the mid-terms his tone has become more accommodative to China. The G20 has produced 90-days of breathing room in the all-important trade war between China and the US. President Trump met with President Xi Jinping, where they apparently discussed 142 different structural items, including the removal of forced joint ventures and loss of intellectual property for US companies expanding into China. Unsurprisingly, President Trump has stated “It’s […]
New Zealand share market – how high is too high? We continue to watch in wonder as the New Zealand share market pushes to new highs. Since the start of the year the NZX50 is up almost 10% and a very impressive 11.70% per annum over the past 10 years to 30 September. Some of this staggering growth has come from increased corporate earnings, but most of the gains have come from an expansion in the multiple of the Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio which has grown from a low of 13.3x in 2012 to a record high 26.6x today, […]
PWA September Market Commentary NZ economy slowing We have had an incredibly positive decade of growth in New Zealand, on the back of strong demand from offshore for local assets, and globally falling interest rates. This has led to strong business growth/confidence and a reducing unemployment rate, as well as an ever more expensive New Zealand share market. Data released in the last week of August showed that business confidence in New Zealand has dropped from a high of over 60% positive in 2014 to 40% negative today. The last time business confidence was at such low levels was back […]
Is this as good as it gets? The US share market had a challenging June with the S&P falling 3% from its mid-month high before starting a slow recovery. As at 9 July 2018 the S&P500 was still 4.10% below the high reached at the end of January 2018. The US economy has just completed an outstanding second quarter with annualised GDP growth now at 3.40%. The last quarter also saw record high increases in corporate earnings of c.25% y.o.y, but is this sustainable? This outstanding growth in earnings has come on the back of record low interest rates, and […]
PWA June Market Commentary The next Eurozone crisis may be building – “Quitaly” One of the outcomes of the Quantitative Easing (QE) that has occurred since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is that anyone with investments has seen their wealth grow, while those without investments have struggled. This has led to the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” increasing substantially. In the democratic world, where the majority can vote for change, the widening gap has led to a rise in power for the “populist parties”. The most recent example of this is in Italy where the Five […]
3% US 10-Year Government Bonds – for one day As inflationary pressures continue to increase in America, we have seen bond markets continuing to price in a higher expectation of rate rises soon from the US Federal Reserve. Rising inflation, and the unwinding of US quantitative easing (QE), led the US 10-year government bond yield to move above 3% for the first time since December 2013. It stayed at this level for only one day, but this breach of what had previously been the upper bound of yields caused the market to finally take notice of the real risk of […]
Markets driven lower by tech scandal & trade wars In the quarter ending March 2018, we have seen further volatility and uncertainty in the markets. All developed markets have produced a negative return, while the emerging markets have managed to maintain a small positive return. The S&P500 had the worst first quarter performance since 1929 according to Bloomberg, bringing the S&P500 Price to Earnings ratio back to 16.5 times. A level not seen since early 2016. Over the last year, ending March 18, market indices have been positive. The lowest annual performance came from the UK (0.22%) and Europe (2.17%). […]
If you’re interested in understanding why people behave in the manner they do, have a read of Freakonomics. An economist and a journalist team up to provide some pretty compelling evidence to show you that not all is what it seems. An obvious example is whether your real estate agent really is motivated to get you the best possible price on your house. Or in reality, scratching out an extra $10,000 for you is really only worth a few hundred dollars to them, if that – so you really should accept this tabled offer, right? As a financial adviser, the […]
Moving closer towards the new norm? The share and bond markets have long been overdue a correction as they have reached and blown past previous record high levels. The recent volatility we have witnessed over the last couple of weeks has been excellent “click bait” for news websites. They love to sensationalise anything that will get their audience to click through to read their opinion. Beyond the sensationalism, in reality we cannot be certain this is the long-awaited selloff. At the time of writing, the concern is not so much the global sharemarkets – which may have a short sharp […]
Labour/NZ First/Greens are in – what does this mean? National won the NZ election with 44.4% of New Zealand’s voting for them right……? In the First Past the Post era this would have been true, but not with Mixed Member Proportional. Even after National received the most votes, and seats in Parliament, Labour has formed a coalition with NZ First and the Green Party to give them 50.40%, and 63 seats in government. So, what does this new coalition mean for New Zealand? Expected outcomes There is a lot of commentary around how Labour will negatively impact the NZ economy […]