Little is more valuable to financial-market participants than accurate predictions of future growth. With interest rates on the rise in the US, investors are anxiously looking for indications of an impending recession. But what are yield curves really telling us about future growth prospects—in the United States and also in Australia? Is dreaded recession in the cards, or is modest slowdown more likely?
Infrastructure that is up to code is vitally important to sustaining a country’s economy, but even developed countries are falling behind in their infrastructure investment. Effective infrastructure investment needs to be a combined effort of governments, multilateral development banks and private investors, but it lags behind in its appeal to private investors. What measures can be taken to draw more private-sector financing into this crucial foundation of economic growth?
The intelligent investor wants to know everything about a potential investment before sinking funds into it, and many portfolio managers today are finding a willing information partner in the big data available through today’s technology breakthroughs. Uncovering all that is needed to make a thoroughly informed investment decision in today’s age of advanced data science has never been easier, but still requires shrewd effort.
The $3 trillion hedge-fund industry is clearly losing its appeal as it delivers progressively lower returns to investors. According to data released by Preqin, a provider of information on the alternative-asset industry, hedge funds yielded average returns of 12.22 percent in 2013, 4.65 percent in 2014 and only 2.02 percent in 2015.
At the beginning of 2016, new rules implemented by the EU (European Union) to prevent taxpayers from being lumbered with the costs of rescuing ailing European banks came into effect.