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A record result for retail sales albeit off a low base, up 16.3% in May, triggered another strong rally in the ASX 200 (ASX:XJO), though it wasn’t enough to offset the threat of more shutdowns with the market finishing up just 0.1% for the day and 1.6% for the week

Global markets continued their recent trend, forgiving recent COVID-19 outbreak spikes and poor unemployment to finish slightly down on yesterday.

The US market ended its winning streak overnight, with the Dow Jones (IND:DJI) retreating 0.6%, the S&P 500 (IND:SPX) -0.4%, with the NASDAQ (NASDAQ:NDAQ) once again immune from any weakness, adding 0.1%.

One of the bugbears of the Australian capital market has been that the country has struggled to develop a meaningful corporate bond market: we’ve really only had one for five years, and the non-financial side of it is still pretty small, at about $50 billion. But like many things that Australia wants, or need, we…

Great debates on longer term economic trends and the impact on financial markets are often a go-to conversation with investors. Few call up to ask what is the discount rate or cash flow yield, but many have opinions on issue such as debt and globalisation. The latter is a tough topic as globalisation is a…

Former Commonwealth Bank executive Adam Bennett has been appointed as Suncorp’s chief information officer. He was previously at Commonwealth Bank for over 15 years and was most recently group executive business and private banking, executive general manager of local business banking and chief information officer for the bank’s retail and business banking divisions. He will…

A new take on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing has emerged with the launch of a fund tackling sustainable opportunities in the water and waste management sectors. Fidelity International recently launched the Fidelity Sustainable Water and Waste Fund in Australia. In what is an under-researched sector, the fund seeks to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns…

CNBC reportedly coined the phrase ‘Kangaroo’ market today with commentators giving on predicting its direction. The term best describes the daily experience of investors as the market ‘bounces’ around.

Global asset manager State Street Corporation released a survey of institutional and sovereign wealth investment professionals last week. The report offered insights into a survey of 640 executives spanning defined benefit funds (33%), corporate pension plans (25%) insurance (32%) and sovereign wealth funds. The report was commissioned through data collection group CoreData and provided some…

Fed to the rescue The ASX 200 (ASX:XJO) caught up to Wall Street’s Friday falls, dropping another 2.2% and taking the losing streak to three consecutive days. The weakness was driven by a combination of cyclicals and the financial sector, with energy down another 3.4% along with consumer discretionary. Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX:WES) lead the sector…

It was a mixed end to the week for the ASX 200 (ASX:XJO) falling 1.9% but recovering from intra-day lows of 3.4% as US markets showed investors were ‘buying the dip’.

Sharemarkets around the world capitulated on Thursday as concerns of a second wave of the Coronavirus hit the US, the S&P 500 shedding (SPX:IND) 5.9% with only one constituent, grocery retailer Kroger’s Inc. (NYSE:KR) posting a positive return.