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Showing 131 - 140 of 219 results for "Catch-22"

Extending the extended extension

BENJAMIN ONG  |  FRIDAY, 27 JAN 2012
Aussie, Ausssie, Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! It's time to shake off that hangover all youse blokes and shielas for as we, Australians all, drank and barbecued Australia Day yesterday, the US Federal Reserve gave financial markets another something to celebrate. ...

Forecasts shmorecasts

BENJAMIN ONG  |  WEDNESDAY, 25 JAN 2012
We're doomed (again)! Oh-em-gee! "IMF slashes growth forecasts!" This was the last piece of news I saw before I went to bed last night and started snoring. Yeah, yeah I thought. Sure, sure. Somehow it didn't give me the same nerve-wracking punch that ...

Happy days

BENJAMIN ONG  |  TUESDAY, 24 JAN 2012
It was another day on the financial markets, another one of those happy days. Yes Virginia, commodity markets are up, equity markets are up - even for those recently credit rating snipped Eurozone bourses - and bond yields are lower - even for those ...

Female SMSF trustees narrow gender gap

CLAIRE MCGREAL  |  MONDAY, 23 JAN 2012
Nearly half of all SMSF members are women, which is helping to reduce the gender gap in retirement savings according to Australia's peak SMSF body. Pointing to recently released figures from the tax office that reveal 46% of SMSF trustees are female ...

So far so good

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 23 JAN 2012
We're now nearing the end of the first month of 2012. And it's been so far so good for financial markets. Hey, did somebody mention the "January effect"? You know the one, the observation that the market's performance for the entire month of January ...

Not so wrong

BENJAMIN ONG  |  FRIDAY, 20 JAN 2012
Something looks wrong - very, very wrong - with how financial markets are conducting themselves nowadays. Investors greeted 2012 with almost universal agreement that the global growth outlook would be worse than it was in 2011 - the World Bank recently ...

Wolf, wolf

BENJAMIN ONG  |  THURSDAY, 19 JAN 2012
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Have you seen this morning's headline on theage.com.au? "'Ugliest' of times ahead." It's all about the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report that, "signalled a downturn so severe it would eclipse the chaos that ...

Get up and go on board

BENJAMIN ONG  |  WEDNESDAY, 18 JAN 2012
Schettino: "In this moment, the boat is tipping... Commander, please..." De Falco: "No, please. You now get up and go on board..." Schettino: "I am here with the rescue boats, I am here, I am not going anywhere, I am here..." This is my personally mouse-clicked ...

Priced in

BENJAMIN ONG  |  TUESDAY, 17 JAN 2012
Standard & Poor's was at it - slashing - again last night. After lopping off one A out of France's and Austria's AAA credit rating at the end of last week, it did the same for the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF). According to S&P: "We consider ...

The times, they're not a -changin'

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 16 JAN 2012
It's a brand new year, yet why does it feel that times are not a-changin'? The problems of 2011 merely just got carried over into 2012. And if you believe those start of the year forecasts, the times could even be a-changin' for the worse - and the ...