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Jan 13, 2025 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
As investors have shed the mundane and bought perceived growth and excitement everywhere, it is perhaps unsurprising that US exceptionalism has remained the order of the day. Good news remains elusive in Europe and China, while US economic resilience has defied the sceptics. ‘Chasing the sun’ has remained the most lucrative investment strategy.
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Nov 13, 2024 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
For those of us aiming to apply rationality to equity market investment, life has rarely been tougher. The picture of the past year is regular and torturous. October repeated more of the same. Large elements of the equity market don’t move much at all, financials move steadily higher, and most things technology-related move vastly higher. Earnings changes are explaining very little of the movement in value. The multiples applied to these earnings are explaining a lot.
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
The tug of war between the real economy and the financial economy in the economic Olympics saw the financial economy comfortably take gold. Businesses pressured by a Chinese economy seeking to export its way out of a weak domestic demand problem or a domestic economy with housing starts at historic lows relative to population sit alongside financial economy businesses buoyed by immigration and asset price bubbles.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
This document is issued by Schroder Investment Management Australia Limited (ABN 22 000 443 274, AFSL 226473) (Schroders). This document does not contain and should not be taken as containing any financial product advice or financial product recommendations. This document does not take into consideration any recipient’s objectives, financial situation or needs.
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May 9, 2024 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
Copernicus wasn’t overly popular with the Catholic church when he proposed the earth orbited around the sun; he was right nevertheless. Challenging the popular wisdom isn’t normally popular. Finance and economics has more than its fair share of theories akin to 16th century astronomy rather than the scientifically proven. One of these is the concept of the equity risk premium (ERP).
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Mar 17, 2024 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
“There are a hundred and eighty slides in this pack. Which one tells me what you’re good at?”This was a famous line from my learned colleague Mr Fleming in a meeting with a large ASX company some years ago. Suffice to say, they’d left this bit out of the presentation. Remembering to stand back and think about what we’re doing isn’t easy. As Warren Buffett noted in his recent annual letter, “For whatever reasons, markets now exhibit far more casino-like behaviour than they did when I was young.
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Jan 15, 2024 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
Optimism rules. Relatively lofty market valuations, risks of recession in the face of rising interest rates and escalating global conflict have proven no match for optimism on the prospects for technology and artificial intelligence. Mega cap technology underwrote much of the 24.2% gain in the S&P500 over 2023 and technology more broadly powered a 43.4% gain in the NASDAQ (the best since 1999).
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Dec 19, 2023 | 
firstlinks.com.au | James Gruber |Marta Norton |Martin Conlon
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Dec 12, 2023 | 
firstlinks.com.au | James Gruber |Marta Norton |Martin Conlon
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Dec 6, 2023 | 
livewiremarkets.com | Martin Conlon
Everyone loves winners. Popularity and perceptions of skill in investment normally correlate closely with recent investment experience. What the wise do in the beginning the fool does in the end. We know cycles and bubbles are driven by human behaviour, yet no-one is ever keen to believe they might be the fool. The past decade or so has been extremely abnormal. Efforts to avert financial crisis morphed into an era of crazily low interest rates and unprecedented monetary intervention.
