WORLD PROPERTY - Aussie bubble now ready to burst

Along with many informed observers, I've gazed in wonder at the Australian housing market over the past few months as it athletically rebounded from the recession ("aw, what recession, mate?") and wafted effortlessly above its price highs of 2007.

Was this, we wondered, awestruck, final proof of a new paradigm in housing?  Could the Aussies beat the Poms at cricket, cream the world in rugby AND make their house prices grow to the sky?

The answer will of course be revealed in the fullness of time, but for those who have an interest in knowing before those smug Aussies do, this excellent article in Forbes should give you a pretty good clue.

US PROPERTY - 'Tremendous distress' in commercial real estate

For those of us who enjoy gnawing at the entrails of our banks, it's worth listening to a guy who's at the sharp end of the commercial property market in the US...

US HOUSING: $4Trillion underwater

As Deutsche Bank forecasts a 40% drop in New York residential property values and US housing data continues to disappoint, the overall scale of the problem is made clear in one disconcertingly simple graphic from a study from Dhaval Joshi, Chief Strategist at UK hedge fund RAB Capital...

THE GOLDILOCKS SCENARIO

I'm prompted to take another look at the shiny stuff by this thought-provoking article in The Economist.

The graphic which particularly caught my eye was one showing a sharp contraction in retail purchases (ie. jewellery) which was more than compensated for by a big pick up in investor interest.




Although 'investors' would here include central banks as well as institutions and individuals, that doesn't make it any less speculative: gold is a speculator's instrument by its very nature.  The only reason to buy is if you think its value is likely to rise or at least outrun inflation, since it pays no income like a bond, no dividend like a stock and it sure ain't gonna pay you a rent.




So the only question worth asking with gold is whether the price is set to keep rising.  Here's my latest answer: 

WORLD CUP: Spain fan? Bet on Holland

OK the cephalopod ain't bad, but has it checked the stats?

Sometimes it's the simplest strategies that work the best.  I'll be rooting for Spain on Sunday night purely because they play the kind of football the gods of the game created it for.  And that's precisely why I just put twenty smackers on Holland to win. 

UK PROPERTY - calm before the storm

Have you noticed?  'For sale' boards are back

The Hometrack survey for June is out and reveals that just 11% of postcodes in Britain saw rising house prices - yet the national average rose by 0.1%.  Weird, huh?  This repeats a general pattern we've been seeing since the market appeared to bottom out in the summer of '09:

THE PERFECT STORM

C o m i n g   S o o n

A year after stock markets bottomed in March 2009, a combination of panic government measures and skillful manoeuvring by central banks appeared to have steered the world's economy into the smooth still waters at the eye of the storm.  

To those navigating the ship and most of its passengers, the threat seemed to have abated.  The skies had cleared, the winds died away and the mountainous waves of 2008 had subsided to the merest of ripples.  No wonder, then, that the captain's been calling full steam ahead.

There's just one problem.  Nobody showed him the satellite picture...

Stocks - Fibonacci analysis of the current breakdown

I thought we should take another look at the ongoing breakdown in stock markets, as further research throws up the intriguing prospect of a short term bounce-back - and what's likely to happen if we don't get one.