The hawkish tone of Fed Governor Jay Powell’s recent speech at Jackson Hole has catalysed increased risk aversion towards the investment outlook. With substantial selloffs already occurring in both the S&P500 and Australian equities, this week’s report takes an in-depth look at the investment implications of Powell’s speech. 

China’s rise over the past couple of decades has been of considerable benefit to Australia. Yet recently, China’s economy recorded its worst quarterly performance in over two years, contracting by 2.5% to be up only 0.4% year on year, well below its target of 5.5%. In this week’s report, we examine the implications for China’s economic outlook.

With the US market up 17% from its mid-June lows, there is considerable debate as to whether the current rally is merely a bear market rally, or whether the rebound represents a more durable turning point into a new bull market phase. We provide our take on the debate in this week’s report.

The Australian economy continues to demonstrate considerable underlying momentum, even though interest rates have been tightened by 175 basis points in the space of just 4 months. In this week’s report, we look at the underlying conditions of Australia’s economy, and consider whether its resilience is likely to continue.

After a tough start to the year, global and Australian equities have bounced back sharply from their mid-June lows. In this week’s report, we explore what to make of the recent rebound in equity markets.

Debates over allocation decisions in equity portfolios tend to focus on growth versus value investment styles. “Quality” is often viewed as an additional consideration in the context of such strategies. But quality can also be an investment strategy in its own right, as we explore in this week’s report.

The global equity market has delivered decent but volatile returns over recent years, with strong rallies punctuated by some sharp pullbacks due to a variety of concerns. One of the key sub-plots has been the performance of growth versus value investment styles.

The prevailing market narrative appears to be shifting. While the inflation outlook remains on the minds of investors and central banks, the growth outlook is now arguably seen as the most significant source of risk.