This year has seen a growing concern that central banks are out of ammo when it comes to reinvigorating global growth and preventing deflation. And the Reserve Bank of Australia’s latest rate cut has some fearing that it’s going down the same “failed path” as other major central banks. But is it really that bad?
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After a period of relative calm over 2012-2014 share market volatility has spiked over the last year as various worries about the global growth outlook intensified. With this renewed volatility a focus on risk in investing and a desire for safety has naturally come. But what is volatility?
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Uncertainty regarding China has been a factor behind global growth worries and share market volatility since mid last year. Put simply the combination of a reversal of gains in Chinese shares, a fall in the Renminbi and uncertainty about the intentions of Chinese policy makers at a time of slowing Chinese growth have fanned fears China was heading for the “hard landing” that China bears have long predicted.
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As if the worry list for investors isn’t already long enough – with emerging markets, China, oil, the Fed – politics (or what some call geopolitics because it sounds better) is also figuring large this year as an issue for investors to keep an eye.
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The one big surprise in the ongoing turmoil in financial markets is the role played by oil. Past experience tells us surging oil prices are bad and plunging oil prices are good. But that has not been the experience lately. It seems there is a positive correlation between oil prices and share markets. So what’s going on?
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2015 has seen another long worry list for investors. Some of these – such as terrorist attacks in Paris, the escalating war in Syria, refugee problems in Europe, Greece’s latest tantrum and tensions in the South China Sea – have not had a lasting impact on investment markets. However, worries about deflation, falling commodity prices, fears of an emerging market (EM) crisis led by China and uncertainty around the Fed’s first interest rate hike have had a more lasting impact.
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For much of this year the big debate (or obsession) for investors has been about when the Fed would start to raise interest rates after nearly seven years of being near zero.
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Analysing the Australian residential property market is a bit like Groundhog Day as the big picture fundamental issues don’t really change much in that Australian housing is expensive, affordability is poor, household debt is high and there is a constant debate as to whether there is a crash around the corner.
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during periods when Mr Market is highly unstable – like the weakness and volatility in investment markets we have seen recently in shares – it is useful for investors to keep in mind a list of critical things that are essential for success in investing in order to avoid being seduced by Mr Market.
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Share markets are full of emotion and right now there seems to be a lot of nervousness around. In fact this has arguably been the case since April during which we have seen several major share markets have decent corrections.
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