Despite higher interest rates in the United States and ongoing weakness in commodity prices, the Australian dollar has broadly trended sideways since late 2015. This note updates our model estimates of fair-value for the $A against the US dollar in light of recent interest rate developments and the December quarter terms of trade results. Although we find that the $A is now closer to fair value (based on current fundamentals), it still seems likely to eventually break below its recent range as fundamentals continue to evolve.
With interest rates still very low around the world by historic standards, the chase for yield among investors remains intense. The need for decent income returns is all the more pressing considering Australia’s population is getting older and more are entering retirement. This note documents how dividends have provided Australian investors a relatively high and stable form of income over time, and considers the outlook for dividends over 2016.
At this time of the year many investors and their advisers are focused on ensuring they implement the most tax efficient strategies in order to take advantage of any benefits or deductions before the end of the financial year. This post details an important but often underappreciated benefit that exchange traded funds (ETFs) can offer investors – tax efficiency. Tax-efficiency is, perhaps, a less visible benefit for investors, as, in the Australian financial market, fund manager performance is more often assessed on pre-tax returns, meaning investors may not be fully appreciative of this ETF related benefit.
The recent rebound in the price of gold in light of heightened financial market volatility should serve as a reminder to investors of the “safe haven” properties that this precious metal can offer. What’s more, should more central banks resort to negative interest rate policy (NIRP) in the face of slowing global growth, gold’s safe haven status could take on added lustre.
The holiday is definitely over! The markets have experienced a horror start to 2016. While losses were sustained across global share markets, it was an opportunity for the exchange traded fund industry to display its resilience amongst the turmoil.
The industry recorded a contrary position to the overall market and saw positive inflows for the month with just over $100m of new money entering the market, although the overall value of the exchange traded fund contracted by -4.3%.
We are happy to announce the launch of the iPhone app of our QuietGrowth service, for our clients. This news comes within few days of us announcing the launch of our Android app. As mentioned earlier, we are the first automated investing service in Australia to offer a mobile app for our clients.
You can download our iPhone app here: apps.apple.com/au/app/quietgrowth-investment-smsf/id1076232266
We will continue with our focus to provide superior customer experience to our clients. Special thanks to our team members who have worked on the launch of the first version of our mobile apps. More exciting product improvements will be offered for the benefit of our clients in days to come!