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My home is my castle

Owning your own home brings a feeling of security in these difficult and changing times.
At the end of the day it is the place of rest where you can close the door and lock the world out and enjoy the company of your family and friends.
So no matter how humble or how opulent it is your place to 'get away from it all'

Australia's Federal Treasurer's view

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says the Australian economy is strong enough to withstand what he describes as the worst global conditions in 25 years.However, Mr Swan says there is no doubt that the economy is slowing.Speaking ahead of this morning's release of the national account figures for the June quarter, the Treasurer told Lyndal Curtis on ABC Radio's AM program Australia was facing tough global economic circumstances."There's no doubt the economy is slowing and it is slowing on the back of the global credit crunch, it's slowing on the back of the 10 interest rate rises that occurred under the Liberal Party," he said."But the extent of that slowing will only be clear when we see the national accounts today."Mr Swan says Australia cannot escape the effects of the credit crunch but maintains the economy is in a good position."I think it's important to get this into perspective," he said."There is a lot of pessimism around on the back of the global credit crunch and the impact it has had, particularly on global stock markets."But here in Australia we have many advantages over the rest of the world."
Yesterday the Reserve Bank (RBA) cut interest rates by 0.25 per cent to 7 per cent but Mr Swan would not comment on whether there should be another cut in the next few months."What I except responsibility for doing is putting in place a disciplined fiscal policy, an investment for the future that will promote growth in a lower inflationary environment," he said."If we want to get interest rates down over time we've got to get inflation down."

Rules for playing the game

Our property markets are changing and we are moving into a new era, where the rules for property investment are different to what they have been to date.

The way many investors have invested in the past just won't work any more at least for some years to come and perhaps the old way of investing will never return.
The times are changing and we are in a difficult economic climate and may be heading to a much more difficult situation in the coming year. We need to be alert not alarmed.
It's time to educate oneself,take note of lessons learned in the past and adapt them to a new and evolving situation where all the cards have not been played by the major players. It is not a time to react emotionally but to detach, survey what is going on in the economy and form an opinion that can be put into an option for action.

Stay fluid, attentive, market ready, and put together several action plans that can be put into motion when they are necessary.
Keep the assets you have and protect them.

Why interest rates are going down

YOU beauty. Interest rates have been cut and happy days are here again. For good measure, we've even got petrol prices coming down.Sorry, don't be too sure about that. The Reserve Bank has cut its official interest rate only because times are getting tougher. That's the way interest rates work: they go up when times are good and come down when times are bad.
To put it another way, a welter of indicators - for retail sales, the home-building industry, business and consumer confidence, levels of debt owed by households and businesses, and job advertisements - suggest the economy has entered a steep dive. Now the Reserve is cutting interest rates in an attempt to pull it out of its dive. Let's hope it succeeds and we suffer nothing worse than a brief and reasonably painless slowdown.
I have to tell you, however, that its record of success at this point in the business cycle isn't reassuring. Of course, those home buyers confident of holding on to their jobs during what economists euphemistically refer to as a "hard landing" have little to fear. For them the pressure is off.And the likelihood of recession in America, Europe and Japan suggests that weaker demand for oil in the developed world will see petrol prices continuing to fall for some time. interest rate movements are like cockroaches - there's always more than one. It's likely that this cut in the official interest rate will be followed by at least another one, probably as soon as next month. How many we get after that, however, depends on whether the economy continues its rapid slowdown next year.On this the Reserve Bank was at pains to point to the parts of the economy that are still strong: the further leap in the prices we are receiving for our exports of coal and iron ore, and the continued growth in business investment in equipment and construction.Provided the economy is holding up overall, the Reserve will be reluctant to cut rates a lot further. That is because the inflation rate is still well above the desired 2-3 per cent range.But if domestic activity continues its dive, the Reserve will soon stop worrying about inflation, confident that rapidly rising prices and weak demand can't coexist. In this case it will continue cutting interest rates next year, but this would be a sign our luck had finally run out. SMH 2/9/08

Just a beginning

Everyone is looking for a quick fix to their financial
dilemas. What do I need to do to fix my finances?
you say. This is a global issue
affecting the majority of the world's population.
In order to "fix finances" a firm foundation of
everlasting fundamentals need to be in place.

I will give you my take on this very serious issue
facing us all at this point in time as the world
remains in a state of great flux and uncertainty.

Investment opportunities

While the sharemarket has fallen to its lowest level in about two years - share prices of household names like Harvey Norman, Commonwealth Bank and David Jones are down by more than 30% since November 2007 - there are plenty of investment opportunities out there.Let's put it in perspective. Often when we see prices fall, many of us race in to catch a bargain. When it comes to shares we tend to react differently. If the share prices of well-managed, dividend-paying companies fall, we view them with suspicion and fear, when perhaps we should see them as opportunities.Sometimes share prices do fall for a good reason. It's true that when recessions occur, company earnings will decline and some companies will make losses. Does that mean all companies will make losses? And are we about to enter the sort of recession we saw in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s? We think not.Growth in the Australian economy over the next two or three years may not be as robust as it's been for the past ten years but we believe it will grow. That's because our population is growing, the world needs the products we sell and Australian companies are reinvesting much of their profits back into their businesses.
The populations of our capital cities are unlikely to shrink over the next five years, so the companies that have been profitably supplying their needs for the past fifty years should continue to do so. There's also been a lot of growth in Asia - so they will be buying our resources and adding to economic growth.Let's look back at what happened after the 1987 crash. From the end of 1987 to the end of 1989 the share prices of all the major banks rose by more than 50% - as did BHP, Rio Tinto, Harvey Norman, Coca-Cola, Caltex, Wesfarmers and QBE Insurance. These were household names providing services at a profit. This is what many businesses are doing now and will continue to do in 2009.While it's easy to be gripped with fear, it's important to look at history and at what makes the market tick. Some share prices have fallen for good reasons; others have just fallen when investors became fearful and sold everything. This is when bargains emerge and investment experts work hard to take advantage of them.