Opinion

Thanks to the rapid uptake in ‘green’ ESG funds by the wholesale and retail investment community, growth in clean and renewable energy is starting to bend the emissions curve. Yes, progress is being made; but nowhere near the required rate to prevent global temperatures from rising past a safe limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Far…

Australia’s largest ETF provider, Betashares, has launched two new products designed to take advantage of the move to decarbonisation and renewable energy – BetaShares Solar ETF (ASX:TANN) and BetaShares Global Uranium ETF (ASX:URNM). The move comes just days after ETF competitor VanEck, announced it would launch a carbon credits ETF. The ETF will track the…

A rollercoaster wouldn’t do justice to the ride Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) shareholders have been on lately. In fact, it’s more like an avalanche, with a temporary reprieve on the way down. After missing internal and external forecasts over the past two years, the Appen share price is down a staggering 84%. In 2020 it…

Over the last few months, there’s been a lot of coverage on cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, and its status as “digital gold.” The reason it is often referred to as “digital gold” is that bitcoin was seen to have been able to provide a store of value like gold. An uncorrelated asset won’t fall when the…

The month of May was a volatile one around the world, but ultimately the US markets finished flat and the S&P/ASX200 only slightly lower. This despite one of the most challenging economic backdrops in multiple years and the growing threat of higher interest rates around the world. So, why are markets seemingly rallying? One of…

If you’ve been following the Nickel price, you will have seen the craziness that took place in early March just after war broke out in Ukraine. The London Metal Exchange (LME) cancelled nickel trading after an unprecedented 250% price rise was triggered by Western sanctions against Russia. The price surged to hit US$101,365 a tonne,…

Given the dramatic falls seen in markets last week, Australia now presents a particularly compelling opportunity to capitalise on the rotation towards value. That’s the view put forward by Martin Currie, an active equities investment manager and part of the Franklin Templeton Group. Reece Birtles, Chief Investment Officer, Martin Currie Australia, says “extremely high valuations…

Jeremy Grantham’s “wild rumpus” appears to have well and truly begun. But it might only be the beginning of a gloomy period for markets. Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist of GMO and part-time prophet of doom, has been unusually quiet of late. One would expect the severe market dislocation we’ve been experiencing since the start…

At our core, almost every investor feels like a contrarian at some point in time. It is only natural to see value in something that has fallen significantly in a short period of time. And to be honest, I must have considered buying the leveraged Nasdaq ETF at least 10 times in the last few…

Private equity is eating the ASX alive. Nearly every other month there is another billionaire dollar private equity approach of an ASX company. The latest is the $20 billion deal for Ramsay Health Care (ASX: RHC). Uniti Group, Vocus and Sydney Airport are recent other examples that the tyre kickers have poached from the ASX…

The Federal Election may well be remembered as one of the most important and unexpected in history. Whilst many had expected a shift away from the traditional parties, few predicted that as many as one in three voters wouldn’t vote for them at all. The popularity of the major parties is both well into the…

Big name Chinese equities including Tencent, Alibaba and JD.com dominated global equity strategies until late 2020. Almost every well-known fund manager in the country had significant weightings to the region on the basis that it had continued to grow strongly during the pandemic and had a strong economic backdrop in the years to come. Naturally,…