Markets

August gains lost in a day, QBEs culture crisis, RBA looking dovish, higher open ahead With reporting season complete, markets are once again turning to economic data and vaccine hopes. It wasn’t a great start to Spring, with the ASX 200 (ASX:XJO) falling 1.8% and giving back nearly all the gains achieved in August. The…

Weak open ahead, Fifth straight month for the ASX, IOOF loads up

Broker upgrades 24-28 August 2020 Redbubble (ASX:RBL) –   Morgans has upgraded its recommendation to Add from Reduce. That’s effectively a double ratings upgrade with a target price of 433c up from 54c. A 700% increase in target price. The massive upgrade comes on the back of the company’s recent profit result. The result reinforced…

In the wake of the pandemic, investors have continued to pile money into variously labelled ESG/sustainable funds. Are they doing what they say?

TikTok can be described as a social networking app, primarily used by millennials, to share and view amateur video content. The app is Chinese owned. Known as Douyin, owned by ByteDance. As of August 2020, TikTok, had surpassed 1 billion users worldwide in less than four years. How does it work? Users film videos of…

Semiconductors would have to be one of the most pervasive and critical pieces of technology in our daily lives – but they are usually not thought about very much. They certainly don’t seem to get the investment love like they should, or get talked about as much as, say, the FAANG stocks or electric vehicle…

ASX 200 down 0.9%, Federal Reserve boosts US markets, AUD hits a 12 month high The ASX 200 (ASX:XJO) finished 0.9% lower on Friday and down 0.6% for the week; the second straight week of losses. Selling was broad-based but particularly coming from materials, down 1.8%, as Australia upped the trade war ante following PM…

It was a mixed day for the market, the ASX 200 (ASX:XJO) finished 0.2% higher despite trading up as much as 0.8% during the day.

The popularity of ESG strategies means the world may be running out of appropriately priced investment opportunities in the sector. In this paper, Amundi writes that it may be time to look for companies that are seeking to improve their business practices but aren’t yet ‘ESG leaders’.

A short summary sheet for clients and advisers, outlining the many types and options in the fast growing sector.

Benchmark-beating Stonehorn Global Partners, a specialist Asian equity team of ex-Macquarie personnel, has expanded its Australian team after a $300 million year. The team that gave up managing $4 billion in assets at Macquarie Equities to build their own business in 2019 have delivered exceptional returns in their Stonehorn Asia Equity All-Cap Fund, adding 18.6%,…

Gender diversity delivers benefits: ESG consulting group, Calvert, undertook extensive research into the impacts of female leadership in large companies. According to the analysis, boards with more than four women outperformed those with less.