12 August 2019 The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (“CBA”) is Australia’s largest bank at $140.6 billion, and the most expensive of the Big Four, in terms of P/E, dividend yield, and price to book ratio. As such, its disappointing result for the year ended 30 June 2019 does not augur well for the other three big banks (who all have September year ends)... [read more]
6 August 2019 With all the news about the Trump Administration’s trade disputes with China, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and the EU, the ordinary investor probably hasn’t noticed one trade war which doesn’t involve the US but could have serious consequences in East Asia. On 2 August 2019 the Japanese government removed South Korea from a “whitelist” of 27 countries which have blanket approval to buy certain sensitive Japanese exports. The whitelist exempts the specified countries from having to get individual approvals for the purchase of hundreds of commercially sensitive materials – for example, materials which have military as well as [...]