ABE Weekly 21/04/2021 Market Update “Folks this government isn’t too big to fail, it’s too big to succeed”. Sarah Palin With more commentary pointing to an ever-strengthening domestic economy people must be feeling a whole lot better about the future than they did this time last year. That said, there are plenty of businesses that are still struggling to [...]
ABE Weekly 14/04/2021 Market Update “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”. JM Keynes The above quote from John Maynard Keynes can in some way be applied to the current state of world financial markets. He was perhaps the first economist to pioneer the idea of accommodative monetary policy. Accommodative monetary policy is when central banks [...]
ABE Weekly 07/04/2021 Market Update “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming”. Richard Branson The RBA met again on Apr 6 and decided to maintain the current policy settings of 10bp for the cash rate and the 3-year bond yield. The other point to note is that the RBA will continue with its bond purchase program. This [...]
ABE Weekly 31/03/2021 Market Update “Life is really simple, but social media has made it complicated”. Seems things are picking up in the US. A testament to the pace of the US recovery, initial jobless claims fell sharply in the week ended March 20, breaking below 700k to be at their lowest level in the post-pandemic period. But [...]
ABE Weekly 24/03/2021 Market Update “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” - Richard Branson On the domestic front, it may sound unbelievable, but employment is essentially back to pre-COVID levels. Total employment for February: +88.7k from +29.5k; unemployment rate: 5.8% from 6.3%; participation rate is stable at 66.1%. In terms of the outlook for interest rates, there remains a long road to full employment, an [...]
ABE Weekly 17/03/2021 Market Update “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small". - Richard Branson On the home front the news just keeps getting better. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment increased by 2.6% to 111.8 in March from 109.1 in February. The Index is now just 0.2 points below the December level [...]
ABE Weekly 10/03/2021 Market Update “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today" It’s ironic to think that the financial system collapse caused by COVID 19 is all but a distant memory now. Westpac recently lifted GDP growth forecasts from 4% to 4.5% for 2021 and is sticking to 3% for 2022. This suggests Australia is on track to achieve pre-pandemic GDP levels by Jun 2021 - who would [...]
ABE Weekly 02/03/2021 Market Update “Be the change that you wish to see in the world. " It has been a while since we have seen so many discussions about the bond market. In this past couple of weeks we have seen moves in the longer part (10 YR) of the yield curve not seen for a while. This has been due to concerns about inflation and the impact this may have [...]
ABX Weekly 24/02/2021 Market Update “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. " You can’t ask for a better indicator of what’s happening across the world in the yield space than the recent issue of a new bond in Europe by H & M Group of EUR 500m / 8.5-year / 0.25% coupon bonds. This bond was heavily oversubscribed despite the very [...]
ABX Weekly 17/02/2021 Market Update “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. " Nelson Mandela Yield curves across the world have started to steepen, something we have not seen for quite some time. This has certainly caught players off guard and caused some pain across the industry. In last week’s note we mentioned that investors [...]