Saturday 30 April 2011

New Vanguard ETFs

Vanguard Australia is to add additional ETFs to their current offer. The new funds will track market sectors, including  small companies, large-cap stocks and high-yield equities.

Source: http://www.morningstar.com.au/etfs/article/vanguard-to-offer-new-etfs/3352

"Endgame: The End of the Debt SuperCycle and How It Changes Everything"

In The Endgame Headwinds (link), John Mauldin, touches on important issues facing the Western world in the next multi-year period. It is a very worthy read.

There are lots of references to the issues further explained in his recently-published book. The excerpts from the book "Endgame: The End of the Debt SuperCycle and How It Changes Everything", by John Mauldin, Jonathan Tepper, is available for preview on Google Books.

Google Books link

Some great quotes from the text are below:

"There are only two ways to grow an economy. Just two. You can increase the working-age population or you can increase productivity. That’s it. No secret sauce."

 

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Golden Rules

Herald Sun has a nice compilation of top investment tips from several well-established investors and fund managers. Read here.

Thursday 21 April 2011

Inflation

Collin Twiggs, in his market commentary "No such thing as free lunch", explains the roots and causes for increase in the money supply in the market and its effects.

This explains the current moment, where bonds are being sold off, the inflation is at the door, and the prices of real assets, like stocks and commodities, are going through the roof.

link

Sunday 3 April 2011

Unemployment starts to drop in EU

BBC, April 1, 2011 - The unemployment in the Euro zone has started to fall. Positive version of the same statement would be that the employment is on the rise. This is a very good sign. It has taken a while for the EU economies to catch up on the recovery but it is finally happening.

Have in mind that the stats differ wildly by country. Some countries are well into double-digit unemployment while others are in the range of natural unemployment (around 4%). 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12934941

Saturday 2 April 2011

Tax the Super-Rich

Here's a really interesting article on the 'Super-Rich Delusion' and the consequences for the society:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tax-the-super-rich-now-or-face-a-revolution-2011-03-29

AUD Forecasts for 2011

There is an overview of the forecasts and conditions affecting the position of the Australian Dollar this year. While the Australian economy is strong and the comodity prices have gone up on one hand, rate rises are expected in the Northern hemisphere on the other. 

http://www.theage.com.au/business/top-dollar-forecast-for-australian-currency-20110401-1crqm.html