Interest is high in how Italy is going to pull a Budget together by the deadline of September 27th. This worry highlights again a significant structural weakness in the construct of the common currency – the lack of an overarching Eurozone-wide fiscal strategy. Lack of fiscal integration remains a key vulnerability for the common currency.
BLOOMBERG – China Everbright and China Water Affairs favoured
Jack Lowenstein, chief investment officer at Morphic Asset Management, talks about opportunities in Chinese environmental stocks on Bloomberg.
When there is muck, there is brass – Part II
After going up more than 10% after we first bought the stock late in 2017, CEI’s shares began an inexplicable slump in the second quarter of 2018. Our ‘stop-loss’ policies ensured that we sold the shares as soon as they fell to a level that suggested there was more going on than just noise.
Harbour’s Managing Director Andrew Bascand visited China last week and met with companies and commentators, to dig beneath the data and get a sense of the current issues.
We visited many malls and shopping centres. In particular we went to mother and baby stores to experience the consumer in action and witness new the eCommerce model. We also visited “wet markets”, hired bicycles with WeChat, and saw progress with a2’s new Chinese-labelled product seeing […]
When credit rating agencies fail
David McLeish, Senior Portfolio Manager
1st September 2018
News last month that the Chinese credit rating agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, had its license suspended is yet another chapter in the less-than-illustrious history of the credit rating industry.
Irregularities that include giving companies higher credit ratings than their financial standing would otherwise have deserved, in return for cash, are just part of a […]
Portfolio update: healthy opportunities in the United States
Chris Waters, Senior Portfolio Analyst
1st September 2018
I was recently travelling through the United States meeting with a number of companies. We travel there regularly to spend time with the management teams of our portfolio companies and to look for new investment ideas. While there, I read a story about a family getting an $18,000 hospital bill for […]
Weathering a financial shock: robust trumps resilience
Frank Jasper, Chief Investment Officer
3rd September 2018
The theme for this year’s Sorted money week is building financial resilience. Resilience is defined by the ability and speed taken to recover from a shock. This is a laudable goal.
Our job as active investment managers is to go one step beyond resilience. It’s to build portfolios that are robust in periods […]
All Fund returns below are after fees & before tax
The New Zealand share market had a strong August with the New Zealand Growth Fund gaining 4.9%. Portfolio performance was driven by double-digit performance by three key portfolio positions – Xero (+19.3%), Delegat’s(+20.2%) and A2 Milk […]