Reserve Bank of Australia data shows that bank term deposits have increased by more than 50 per cent in 2008 which is the fastest growth in term deposits in nearly 20 years.
>> Read more
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Australian Banking major ANZ which is alleging that the lender failed to adequately disclose risks associated with loans to insolvent margin lender Opes Prime.
>> Read more
Research provided by wealth managers AMP Capital Investors suggests that Aussie bonds, which have been serial underperformers for most of the last decade when compared to their equity brethren, have provided relatively spectacular returns this year.
>> Read more
Australian pension funds lost a combined A$ 91 billion or US$ 62 billion in the year to Sept 2008, which amounts to the equivalent of about 8 per cent of the country’s total economic output. The staggering loss is a direct consequence of the global credit crisis which has had the result of devaluing assets globally.
>> Read more
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) says it will start focusing more closely on the operations of Australian broking houses that use market rumours to generate an increase in their sales or the trading activity of their clients .
>> Read more
Babcock & Brown, the troubled Australian investment advisory firm, said that it was involved in a dispute with one of its bankers, over the release of a deposit which it views as a “material amount”
>> Read more
It has been a terrible couple of weeks for CBA; two major brokers downgraded Commonwealth Bank of Australia since the beginning of last week. Investors were spooked over the bank’s exposure to Allco Finance and ABC Learning. The capital raising by rival NAB at the start of this week which had the effect of improving its tier one capital ratio, all but guaranteed that investors would lay siege to CBA’s stock price over the last two days, as investors demand that the bank observe the more conservative benchmarks in capital adequacy that its peers are observing.
>> Read more
Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corp, have both signed a four year agreement with one another to provide online share trading and portfolio administration services.
The agreement is in actual fact between two Westpac Banking Corp subsidiaries, and a CBA unit. Westpac subsidiaries, Westpac Securities Ltd and BT Portfolio Services Ltd, did signed a deal with CBA unit Australia Investment Exchange Ltd, which is part of its brokerage division CommSec.
CommSec managing director Matt Comyn said CBA was committed to becoming the leading provider of wholesale financial services in Australia.
Compare Australia’s Best Online Trading Platforms
Warren Buffet thinks that stocks all over the world are attractively priced right now. He seems to have an awful lot of confidence in US equities and is putting his money where his mouth is. In fact I would have to agree with him and my own personal view is they do seem cheap to me. But just after I bought some equities at the beginning of November, world equity markets went into free fall and I found myself having to return time and again to Mr. Buffet’s op-ed piece in the New York Times for comfort, when the pain it seemed, was just too much to bare.
If you can stomach a roller coaster in the short and medium term, then it’s worth thinking about a punt. Perhaps the easiest way I can think of buying Australian stocks is through an online broker like St George’s directshares. They are my broker of choice, just because it was so easy to set up an account with them, If you already have a Power Saver bank account with St George like I did, then setting up a St. George’s directshares trading account is a complete doddle. Here is my logic though, and in large part I have plagiarised from the Sage of Omaha, because he is the world’s greatest investor and I am sure he uses a St. George’s directshares trading account when he buys a few billion dollars of equities!!!
>> Read more
Australian wealth manager AMP in a sign that the market for capital raising is thawing somewhat, managed to raise a higher than expected amount on strong demand from institutional investors.
>> Read more