First Government Bonds (12th Century Republic of Venice)
Venice, 1171-2, was a city in financial strife. Within what’s terms the Medieval Era by historians it was certainty the dark ages for finance. The Republic of Venice had lost a war to the Byzantine Empire, causing significant damage to their fleet, embarrassing the city. The leader at the time, the Doge of Venice Michiel (a modern-day Chief Magistrate/Duke) was murdered by a fellow Venetian upon return from the war.
World’s First IPO: Dutch East India Company
The modern-day stock market serves one sole purpose; to provide a financing solution for capital-seeking enterprises with willing investors. The birth of the stock market is linked to the establishment of a large state-owned multinational corporation, the Dutch East India Company, with its shares first trading hands in Amsterdam in 1602.
Fair Market Value in Water Utilities Explained
Public American water utilities companies have been benefitting from an increasingly favourable regulatory backdrop in certain states thanks to the passing of fair market value legislation. An old-fashioned valuation framework limited the amount investor owned utilities could pay to privatise government assets, often resulting in chronic underinvestment in essential utilities. Fair market value (FMV) legislation in several states has freed up the market but has consumer advocate groups concerned this is all just a money-making exercise to monopolise a commodity we all rely on for daily life.
COVID-19 Earnings Season: Second Order Effects in Edwards Lifesciences
The current earnings season is a great time for armchair epidemiologists to take a take a break and focus on individual companies, even if through the lens of COVID-19.
The short-term price movements can be exciting, exhilarating if timed correctly. I look forward to these few weeks every quarter as a learning opportunity and to sanity-check my expectations against reality.
Debunking the Myth of Staying Fully Invested
There’s a familiar fact cited to investors aimed at settling nerves and reinforcing the mantra to always be invested. If you miss the best days of the market, you are going to significantly underperform and lose out on massive wealth creation. The market is a continuous compounding machine, and those strong 10 or 20 days preciously add up. The collective wisdom is therefore to stay permanently invested and avoid trying to time the market.
A typical example from Fidelity (many others present similar analysis) and will surely be doing the rounds after the COVID-19 induced bear-market.
Why Financial Markets Are So Volatile Responding to Coronavirus
Financial markets originally shrugging off the coronavirus have now been shattered as case numbers escalate in once immune regions like the United States, Italy, Spain and even Australia. The economic backdrop has completely changed in one month.
Every second person I know is working from home, holiday plans are getting axed and the wheels of the economy are screeching towards a whiplash inducing halt. The current backdrop is uncertain, data points either are wrong, out of date or meaningless. Market sentiment continues to favour the view the economy is structurally sound and once coronavirus is managed; we should bounce back rather quickly.
Microsoft's Cloud Unit Azure Shows Tremendous Potential
Microsoft’s second quarter results for FY2020 were released a few weeks ago and were amongst the best prints for US earnings season. The Redmond based tech giant is firing on all cylinders with a share price rewarding the strong performance. At ~$187, up 74% in the last twelve months, many would say the price has run ahead of the business.
China’s Variable Interest Entity Structure Explained in 100 and 1,300 words
Many of the largest and fastest growing technology businesses reside in China and present tremendous long-term opportunities to investors, benefitting from the same structural tailwinds as the FANG stocks. Most of these businesses are listed offshore in more developed financial hubs like Hong Kong and New York.
Australian Finance Group Thriving In A Low Mortgage Rate World
2019 was certainly one of the most challenging years for companies directly exposed to the residential mortgage market. Take the beginning of the year where an ill-considered Royal Commission report recommended the banning of trail commissions coupled with a sluggish housing market.