Markets

According to research the Australian bond market is in the midst of its worst year of returns since 1994, currently sitting on a capital loss of 3.1 per cent. Headlines harking back to the ‘great bond massacre’ which occurred some 25 years ago continue to grow, which according to EPFR has seen some $890 million…

ASIC has put financial services companies and fintech start-ups on notice, warning them against paying finfluencers to advertise products and services. So if you’re thinking of hiring an ultra-cool “finfluencer” to help redirect social media traffic to your website or to spruik your products or better yet, to share advice… you’d better rethink your marketing…

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have captured investors’ imagination as a means of helping society while also capturing decent returns. And they’re gaining in popularity, with billions in inflows into strategies that follow them in the six years since their launch. The 17 goals are unique, as it is the first time in history that…

Komatsu Australia, the local arm of the global manufacturer and distributor of earthmoving equipment, has taken a step into the future by embracing virtual reality (VR) technology to help train and upskill its staff. The company has called upon Brisbane-based virtual reality scale-up, Next World Enterprises, to train and upskill its RTOs in line with…

If you are an avid reader of the daily financial press, you could be forgiven for thinking that inflation is here to stay and that its time to stock-up on gold, inflation-linked bonds and cash to protect yourself. Such is the fervour of the inflation debate that headlines are now calling-out central banks to raise…

Covid and COP26 may not seem like a natural pairing beyond their headlines and emotive reactions they induce. Yet there are long-term investment consequences attached to both. After the initial ‘hurray’ on the global opening of borders and possible travel, the less exciting news is on the cost of Covid tests, the potential expense of…

Is it the chicken, or is it the egg? Does a certain kind of personality gravitate to becoming a “quant” manager, or do quant managers end up thinking in a systematic way? “I’m pretty sure that a large part of it is innate,” says Andre Roberts, senior portfolio manager in the Invesco Quantitative Strategies (IQS) team. “Certainly,…

Investment markets have a reputation for being ultra-competitive, with the concept of a zero-sum game meaning one investor’s loss is another’s gain. Yet in the fast growing “impact” investment sector, it appears the opposite is true, with managers seemingly revelling in the success of others. This was likely among the reasons behind the release of…

Popular wealth platform Praemium has approved Monochrome’s flagship Bitcoin Fund on the Powerwrap product suite providing wholesale investors access to a Bitcoin fund via their IDPS-like scheme. Powerwrap has been well ahead of the cryptocurrency boom, having launched its first Bitcoin tracker fund two years ago, through the Cloudbreak Asset Management (CBAM) team, which established…

Revolution Asset Management, one of Australia’s leading providers of financing to non-bank lenders and corporates, recently highlighted the strong health of Australia’s corporate sector in a portfolio update. The group continues to move from strength to strength just a few years since founding, with the latest Private Debt Fund having deployed $700 million of $1.1…

The RBA said it has little choice other than to scrap its yield curve control policy in targeting a 0.1 per cent yield on the April 2024 government bond. RBA Governor Lowe said, “Given the progress towards our goals and the revised outlook, the Board judged that it was no longer sustainable to maintain the…

The London Stock Exchange Group and its FTSE Russell subsidiary have partnered with Digital Asset Research, provider of cryptocurrency pricing and market data, to announce the launch of the FTSE Russell Digital Asset Index Series. It marks another step into the mainstream for cryptocurrency, the further professionalisation of an industry sector that has remained somewhat…