Insurance Australia Group may put its Asian businesses on the block, adding to predictions the insurer could soon be holding excess capital to return to shareholders. Investors Mutual portfolio manager Michael O'Neill said the result pointed to "strong underlying growth in premium and margin," alongside solid control of costs.
As expected, the Australian market fell heavily earlier in the week in reaction to the falls of Wall Street.
In these types of sell-offs, everything tends to fall, as investors/quant funds sell indiscriminately to reduce their exposure to equities and many trading positions are unwound.
The 4.1 per cent fall in the S&P 500 on Monday needs to be put in perspective, says Anton Tagliaferro, investment director at Investors Mutual, pointing out that the broad United States index climbed 20 per cent in 2017.
"The correction is overdue. I don't think the shake-up is too much of a surprise," says the veteran stockpicker.
Last week Wall Street fell over 1,000 points, reversing the sharp rises of earlier in the month. Many are now asking if this is the start of a new trend on markets and what it all means for the Australian sharemarket. Anton Tagliaferro, IML's Investment Director provides his comments.
In part two of our Healthcare sector update with Daniel Moore, Senior Equities Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Investors Mutual, Daniel discusses those stocks that he believes are the best long-term investment opportunities, which ones he is cautious on, and what the future holds for the sector as a whole.
After a tepid first half of 2017, the Australian Small Ordinaries index (XSO) rose strongly over the second half of the calendar year, to be up over 18% (at the end of December). While the headline gain is impressive, the reality is that this rally has been fairly narrowly based with a small number of stocks recording strong gains. This rally has been driven by a frantic search for earnings growth given what continues to be a low growth domestic economy.
Australia’s Healthcare sector has outperformed all others over the last five years, due to strong demand from investors seeking companies with reliable earnings growth. This has pushed valuations to historically high levels.
In such a specialist industry with rich valuations, how then do you determine the best long-term investments?
