With only a week and a bit before Commonwealth Bank delivers its December half profit – and kicks off the February reporting season proper – it’s time to play the Australian market’s favourite game: how to justify CBA’s valuation, which is the highest in the history of developed market banking.… Read More »Could CBA’s clever growth strategy come back to bite?
All Paul Bloxham had to do to take out the title of top Australian economic forecaster for 2024 was nothing. His conviction that the Reserve Bank of Australia would stand pat on monetary policy last year, leaving the cash rate unchanged at 4.35 per cent at every meeting, earned him… Read More »Top forecaster Paul Bloxham says trade war changes the RBA path
President Donald Trump’s new executive order issuing tariffs on goods entering the U.S. from Canada, China and Mexico sent markets falling early Monday. By midday, the markets rebounded on news of a one-month pause on Mexico tariffs. The events are a reminder that two forces drive the markets — underlying fundamentals and sentiment,… Read More »As markets absorb tariff news, it’s a wake-up call for individual investors, experts say
Investors had a volatile end to January as they weighed the Federal Reserve’s pause on rate cuts, a busy earnings season and the prospect of new tariffs. Given these dynamics and the volatility in the stock market, it could be difficult for investors to pick the right stocks for their… Read More »Top Wall Street analysts are optimistic about the growth prospects of these 3 stocks
Investors in Australian private equity funds face a cumulative $25 billion wipeout as valuations for portfolio businesses can no longer escape the effect of higher interest rates, shrunken profit margins and reduced prices for benchmark assets. New research by global consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal concluded that a near tripling in capital… Read More »Private equity funds face ‘$25b’ valuation wipeout
Markets and local business leaders were sure Trump’s tariffs threats were a negotiating tactic. A serious rethink is suddenly needed, especially Down Under. At any other time, there’d be something faintly amusing about the fact the market has been apparently caught by surprise after the first salvo in a tariff… Read More »Australia risks worst of both worlds in Trump tariff war
Skin in the game. An owner’s mindset. There are lots of phrases to describe what makes founder-led companies special, but Oscar Oberg and Tobias Yao prefer to sum it up with one word: obsession. The fund managers from Wilson Asset Management are the brains behind a new Founders Fund that… Read More »The huge red flag this new ASX founders fund is watching for
How has the market managed to hold its ground near record highs against a jarring breakdown in the bull market’s bell cow Nvidia, a jumpy bond market, some uninspiring results from Apple and Microsoft and on-and-off-and-on tariff threats against the Americas’ largest trading partners? By relying on the two most powerful forces blowing through Wall… Read More »The two powerful forces that have kept this bull market from breaking down
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: American Airlines — Shares fell 2.5% after an American Airlines regional jet collided with an Army helicopter in Washington, D.C., marking the first fatal commercial airline crash on U.S. soil since 2009. Nvidia — Shares pulled back more than 3% as the chipmaker remained under… Read More »Stocks making the biggest moves midday: IBM, Caterpillar, Nvidia, Comcast, UPS and more
TPG managing director Inaki Berroeta says he hopes to woo Telstra customers as it starts offering Optus’ regional phone network and finalises a restructure that increases its reliance on earnings from mobile services. The network-sharing arrangement kicks off on Thursday after TPG and Optus secured regulatory approval in September for… Read More »TPG turns on its Optus tie-up, hoping to steal Telstra customers