Oliver’s Insights

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 27 2017 Key points At its core, successful investing is simple, but we have a knack of making it look complex. Here are another five great charts that help illuminate key aspects of investing: the importance of time in the market relative to timing; the case to look... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 25 2017 Key points The key lessons for investors from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) are that: high returns come with higher risk; while each boom bust cycle is different, markets are pushed to extremes of valuation and sentiment; be sceptical of financial engineering or... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 24 2017 Key points Tensions with North Korea have clearly increased causing volatility in share markets. The risk of war has grown but a diplomatic solution remains most likely although there could still be more volatility before this is finally achieved. Historically, shares have been adversely affected initially on... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 23 2017 Key points Inequality has been trending higher over recent decades. This is particularly the case in the emerging world and the US but is also evident in Australia. Key drivers have been a rising profits share of GDP, technological innovation and globalisation. It has become more noticeable... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 34 2016\ Key points Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States risks ushering in a period of policy uncertainty which could cause further share market weakness in the short term. Australia and Asia generally are particularly exposed to this given the high... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 32 2016 Key Points The combination of a massive ramp up in financial information combined with our natural inclination to zoom in on negative news is making us worse investors: more fearful, more jittery, more short term. Five ways to help manage the noise... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 30 2016 Key Points The 8 November US Presidential election is looming as a significant event for investors (and the world) given the “policies” of Republican candidate Donald Trump. The smoothest outcome for investors would be a Clinton victory but Republicans continuing to control... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 28 2016 Key points The mostly gloomy debate around the Australian economy often gives the impression we are in a constant state of crisis. But economic growth is pretty good, the economy has rebalanced without the (“inevitable”) recession, the worst of the mining bust... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 26 2016 Key points Low and falling investment yields from most major asset classes point to a constrained medium term return outlook. For a diversified mix of assets, this has now fallen to around 6.9% on our projections. For investors the key is to:... Read more

By Shane Oliver, Head of Investment Strategy & Chief Economist from Oliver’s Insights, AMP Capital, Edition 23 2016 Key points The past financial year has been rather messy for investors with another long worry list, a bear market in most share markets and record low bond yields. However, returns for diversified investors were not disastrous and followed several strong years.... Read more