Insightful Insights

The rise of macroeconomics, to such an extent that it dominates the national and global narrative, can only be described as stunning. It might be news to many that there is in fact no ‘Nobel Prize in Economics’ even though a Nobel Prize in Economics is awarded annually. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights.

• 3 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights

APRA released quarterly statistics for the private health insurance industry during the week. While the data showed rising gross margin trends for the insurers as a result of slowing hospital treatment volume growth, there were trends in the premium data that will be concerning for the Government. continue…

by Stuart Jackson Posted in Health Care, Insightful Insights.

• 5 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Health Care, Insightful Insights

When Michael Stipe of REM wrote The End of the World as We Know It and penned the lyrics, “A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies, offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline.” He wasn’t thinking of the 2016 US Presidential Elections nor the resistance of consumers to lower and lower interest rates but he may as well have been. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Economics, Insightful Insights.

• 17 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Economics, Insightful Insights

Blenheim Partners have summarised the senior appointments and Board movements across the market for the month of April.

Please click here to read the movements by sector for April 2016.

For more information, contact Blenheim Partners, Clare McKenna on +61 2 9253 0951 or at clare.mckenna@blenheimpartners.com.

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights.

• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights

With the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank adopting negative interest rates – 5 year sovereign bonds in Japan, Germany and France are negative 0.23 per cent, negative 0.38 per cent and negative 0.18 per cent, respectively – and the Reserve Bank of Australia following suit by cutting the record low cash rate further to 1.75 per cent earlier in May, it seems the chase for high yielding Australian stocks is back on the agenda. continue…

by David Buckland Posted in Insightful Insights.

• 7 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights

Global returns and interest rates are so low that in Denmark borrowers are finding their mortgage balances are declining, even without making payments, because interest rates are negative. Elsewhere, high-quality companies are trading at eye-watering multiples. In private equity, too much money is chasing too few opportunities, and meanwhile investors are happy to buy property that is yielding barely more than bank interest despite the higher risk profile. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights, Property.

• 11 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights, Property

As a consumer I love it when Woolies offers lower prices. If I was still an investor in the shares of the company, I’d be much less sanguine. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Consumer discretionary, Insightful Insights.

• 5 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Consumer discretionary, Insightful Insights

Regular readers will know that at Montgomery Investment Management we try to take advantage of technology to improve our investment process. One of the ways we do that is with machine learning algorithms.  In simple terms, we gather large amounts of historical data and using that data we “teach” a computer system to distinguish between good investments and weaker ones by finding relationships between the historical data and subsequent investment performance. Our experience with these systems leads us to think that they have a useful role to play in sorting the wheat from the chaff. continue…

by Tim Kelley Posted in Insightful Insights.

• 13 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights

Incitec Pivot (ASX: IPL) has just written down the value of its fertiliser plant in Queensland by $106 million due to higher gas prices – the perfect storm in Australia’s LNG market has arrived. continue…

by Ben MacNevin Posted in Insightful Insights.

• 1 Comments
• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights

In the last few weeks China has experienced an explosion of speculative trading in commodities. What does this mean for Australian resources?

You can listen to all of the team’s television interviews through browsing our media library, view more clips here.

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights.

• save this article
• POSTED IN Insightful Insights