As the COVID recovery gathers momentum, it is interesting to consider which sectors and companies are benefiting from the short-term boost of temporary stimulus measures and which present long-term opportunities as global growth recovers. We have identified three themes that frame our thinking about the long-term prospects of Australian small cap stocks: adding to high…
There are a plethora of reasons for advisers to dismiss Bitcoin and other crypto assets as a worthy holding in clients’ investment portfolios. For one, they’re for the most part unregulated. To say they’re volatile is an understatement. Let’s not forget the serious fraud and theft concerns that accompany it. But crypto is here to…
An illustration of why an active long-short approach to the global listed infrastructure (GLI) sector makes sense. ESG funds have gained in popularity in 2020, sometimes with a material impact on underlying holdings. This has impacted GLI stocks recently, with the iShares Clean Energy ETF buying 1%-6% of companies’ floats in a matter of weeks, leading to…
Groups of amateur investors that gather on social media forums such as Reddit have organized to buy stocks and options in companies with high short interest like GameStop, AMC Entertainment and Blackberry, among others. The buying activity drove the stocks up sharply over the last several weeks and resulted in a massive short squeeze with…
In 1943, the president of IBM, Tom Watson, famously remarked that he saw a worldwide market for “maybe five computers”. Bringing that forecast up to date, IDC, a global technology research firm, predicts that by the time we reach 2025 the planet will host 56 billion connected devices. The internet of things (IoT) is not…
How do you know you need advice? Seeking advice can be a challenging endeavour for most people. It is not so much that advice is hard to find, but more so that the abundance of information out there offers so much but under it may lie hidden intentions but more on this later. Here are…
Global credit will see a cyclical recovery in 2021 This year has certainly been one for the record books, leaving many to speculate what 2021 may bring. Given the expectations for a vaccine and the tremendous policy responses at work, Brian L. Kloss, Portfolio Manager at Brandywine Global, a global investment manager, believes there is…
Active management will be essential for fixed income investors looking to navigate fixed income markets in the months and years ahead As investors continue to grapple with the US election outcome, the economy, coronavirus developments, and other unknowns, the one certainty is that the ability to navigate the fixed-income markets will be critically important in…
The Kiwi counterpart of US online direct investment platform Robinhood is sounding out the Australian market for possible expansion. Brooke Roberts, co-founder of the Wellington-based Sharesies, said the firm was recruiting an Australian country manager. “We are looking at launching Sharesies in Australia,” she said. “But at the moment we’re working on a product that…
Environmental (E), Social (S), and Governance (G) analyses consider a multitude of issues within the E, S, G pillars. For example, MSCI, one of the mainstream ESG data and rating providers, scores companies using ten themes and 37 different factors across E, S, and G categories. However, while these scores can provide useful information about…
