Insightful Insights

Healthscope (ASX: HSO) and Ramsay Health Care (ASX: RHC) hotly contested the Northern Beaches hospital tender at Sydney’s Frenchs Forest, with Healthscope emerging victorious. Should Ramsay shareholders be concerned? continue…

by Ben MacNevin Posted in Health Care, Insightful Insights, Montgomery News and Updates.

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Last week I posted some data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to find out how fast Australia’s appetite for downloads had been growing over the past few years. If you haven’t read it, you can find the post here.

Now I pose a different question although slightly related, is there a relationship between the speed of internet offered in a country and demand? Interestingly enough there is. continue…

by Scott Shuttleworth Posted in Insightful Insights, Technology & Telecommunications.

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Proponents of the efficient markets hypothesis argue that the only way to achieve higher investment returns is to take more risk. Clearly, there’s some truth to this – very low risk asset classes (like cash) tend to deliver lower returns – on average – than higher risk asset classes (like shares). However, when you look within the shares asset class, the picture is rather more interesting. continue…

by Tim Kelley Posted in Insightful Insights, Investing Education.

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Veda Group Limited (VED) is one of the more successful IPO’s we have participated in recently. Listing in early December 2013 at $1.25 the stock went on to subsequently double in price hitting a high of $2.55 just a few months later.

Adding to this success was the exceptional 2014 full year results that came in ahead of the prospectus guidance, producing one of the best reports over the August reporting season. continue…

by Russell Muldoon Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights, Market Valuation.

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It’s a bloody disgrace! It’s un-Australian and it’s nothing more than stealing from your own neighbour.

Finally, The Australian Financial Review, who received 28,000 pages of leaked tax information, forwarded it to ATO Commissioner Chris Jordan. The information reveals how 343 local and foreign companies used accounting firm PwC to slash their tax bills through total swap returns, royalty payments, hybrid debt structures and secret deals with tax havens like Luxembourg. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Economics, Insightful Insights.

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Some times you just wake up with a clear view of our current condition. I think my friend Chris Joye, a columnist for the The Australian Financial Review and a director at YBR Funds Management, might be feeling a little like Neo did in the movie The Matrix, when he woke up to see reality for the first time.

In his article today, Why Capitalism Is Not Doing Its Job, Chris makes the observation:

“There is absolutely a role for governments to vouchsafe a minimum level of liquidity when markets temporarily shut tight in crises. I argued this in March 2008 apropos the securitisation market, which the government ended up (very) profitably supporting with $15 billion. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Financial Services, Insightful Insights, Value.able.

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I sat next to David Murray AO, Chairman of the Financial Services Inquiry (FSI), at a breakfast meeting yesterday and I understand his final report is scheduled for presentation to Treasurer Hockey before the end of the month.

David is a quiet and very thoughtful guy and with a chuckle he said, “I have been trying to leak the recommendations of the FSI but no one seems to be listening”. continue…

by David Buckland Posted in Companies, Financial Services, Insightful Insights, Value.able.

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For those of you looking for some relief from the trails and tribulations of investing; we had to laugh when we read this excerpt from the transcript of a conference call between analysts and Cliffs Natural Resources Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Lourenço Gonçalves. 
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. is a higher-cost iron ore producer in North America.

There’s no question about the humorous value in this dialogue. However, the question that remains is whether analysts are less likely to put a negative rating on a stock following such interactions. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights, Value.able.

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SARS, bird flu and swine flu had a material impact on global financial markets, yet the long-term impact on economies and businesses was relatively minor. Even though there is a precedent of pandemics passing relatively quickly (this is not to downplay the value of lives that were lost), it is unsurprising to see the volatile response of financial markets to the Ebola outbreak. continue…

by Ben MacNevin Posted in Insightful Insights.

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What is an Exabyte, exactly? It’s 1 million terabytes or, if you’d prefer; 1 billion gigabytes. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australians have downloaded nearly 1 exabyte of data in just three months from April to the end of June 2014. continue…

by Scott Shuttleworth Posted in Insightful Insights, Technology & Telecommunications.

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