What happened? Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been announced as the President-Elect to take over from President Barack Obama, after he won enough electoral votes to beat Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton. In addition, the Republicans won enough seats to hold power in both the House and the Senate. The result was a surprise relative […]

With only a few days until the US Presidential election, most early voters and polls favour Clinton but anything could happen in the final moments. The FBI is once again investigating Clinton’s emails, while Trump continues to broadcast his views of a rigged election as many prominent Republicans distance themselves from him. While a Trump victory […]

With interest rates in Australia dropping to an all time low earlier this month, and the likelyhood of more to come, we draw on the expertise of the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) to look at some of the reasons why currency movements seem counter intuitive at the moment thus reinforcing it as one of the hardest […]

“How do I generate my required return in a low return, high volatility world?” While a lot of investors are currently dealing with the same question, there are some big differences in their responses. Some fall victim to the ‘cycle of investor emotions’, becoming hostage to their ‘lizard brain’ where fight and flight responses either […]

According to media reports this afternoon, the United Kingdom (UK) has voted to leave the European Union (EU) – an unprecedented move in economic and investment market terms – which is sure to cause short-term market volatility and concern for investors.   UK votes to leave – what next ? Because this situation is unprecedented, […]

Global equity markets seem much more susceptible to changes in investor sentiment, and they’ve seen surges in volatility since August 2015. With this in mind, what should investors be watching for clues as to where the market might be headed? Equity gains since 2012 have been overwhelmingly driven by rising valuations, as illustrated by the […]

The severe equity sell-off has raised concerns of recession in the US economy. Continued market disorder would pose a risk to the expansion at some point, but key indicators today suggest the growth cycle is still on track. New Orders Suggest Continued Moderate Growth The Institute of Supply Management’s (ISM) New Orders Index, which captures […]

The global market volatility in January 2016 looks to be an extension of the stock market weakness we have seen during 2015. According to Russell Investments, at its core, the weakness is a reprise of the weakness seen last August (see our August 2015 market update here) and they expect much the same for now. […]

The past few weeks have seen increased volatility and sell offs across global risk markets. This has been increasingly impacting emerging markets, where growing concerns over the economic slowdown in China have put downward pressure on emerging markets equities and commodity markets. This short article provided by Russell Investments provides a further insight into what’s […]

For the quarter ending March 2015, financial market conditions seemed “not too hot, not too cold, but just right” for equities. Interest rates remain very low, inflation is low and growth is expected to remain moderate. Investors also pondered what could go wrong and identified the key risks as ‘inflation surprise’, ‘deflation grind’ or something […]