Stock of the Week: Seek
Digital job ads platform, Seek, has confirmed that its Chinese digital jobs classifieds business, Zhaopin, is speaking to potential investors amid speculation e-commerce giant Alibaba could invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the company. SEK told the markets that Zhaopin and its shareholders were in discussions with “a number of parties” about new investment…
Rental market starts to tighten…which is good for values
It has been an interesting week for property research. Banking giant Westpac estimates national house prices will only fall by a further 2.3 per cent by the end of the financial year before rebounding by 15 per cent over the following two years. The bank had previously predicted a 10 per cent plunge in prices…
Superannuation continues its recovery
Market stability and continued momentum in shares helped to bolster account balances in August. However, while consumers and investors are looking ahead to a ‘COVID normal’ world, the recovery is highly dependent on infection rates and the gradual easing of restrictions across the country. According to estimates from leading superannuation research house SuperRatings, the median…
Is the fall in unemployment sustainable?
What about those unemployment figures… wow… no-one saw that coming. Most experts predicted another big loss in jobs and rise in unemployment. Instead, our unemployment rate for August fell from a 22 year high of 7.5 per cent to 6.8 per cent… experts were predicting 7.7 per cent. Around 111,000 jobs were created… or more…
How new bank 0% credit cards compare with Afterpay and Zip; Hammered shares expected to bounce highest
Hi gang, Was chatting with my colleague, David Scutt (Scutty), from our Ausbiz streaming service during the week about all the economic data coming out and what it’s telling us about the economy going forward. I really value Scutty’s perspective because he is a good counter to my natural optimism. In his view, forget trying…
Stock of the Week: NextDC and Pointsbet
Stock of the Week #1; NextDC NXT reported a 14 per cent rise in revenue, coming in at the high end of its guidance range. Growth was driven by strong demand for capacity at its data centres. Customer numbers also surged – up by 15 per cent in the period. Spending was big in the…
Kochie’s economic update: Recession better than most other countries, mixed bag of property returns
Lot to get through with the release of the National Accounts … which we used to refer to as the “economic growth” figures until we didn’t grow. As expected the economy contracted 7 per cent in the June quarter, and 6.3 per cent for the year, as the economy was smashed by the impact of…
Kochie’s economic update: Wage growth low, superannuation recovering and property rents still declining
Wage growth low… and could stay that way for a while No surprises in the latest wage data with growth weak in line with the job market. What was surprising is that wage growth edged higher in the three months to June. The Wage Price Index (WPI) rose 0.2 per cent in the June quarter but over…
Stock of the Week: Seek
Online recruitment advertising business Seek announced an expected big drop in profits during the week as the jobs market around the world is in turmoil because of COVID. Seek’s annual earnings were down more than 9 per cent to a net loss of $111.7 million although revenue for the group edged slightly higher to $1.5…
RBA Governor says cash rate to stay low for up to 3 years
This morning Reserve Bank Governor, Phillip Lowe, fronted (digitally) a parliamentary committee and had a lot to say. The highlights for me of what he said are: – The official cash rate of 0.25 per cent will stay at this level for up to 3 years. He says that will help business (and average Australians)…
Stock of the Week: AMP
I know Stock of the Week is usually a company you can buy I’ve been interested in what the experts think of the battered, iconic financial giant AMP. This week AMP came under more pressure as the huge value investor, Lazard Asset Management is no longer a substantial shareholder. Earlier this year, Lazard held over…
