Asking the Right Questions
Decision making and ‘the door test’
In life, faced with an infinite amount of possibilities and incomplete information we tend to rely on our own personal metrics for making decisions, whether it be on investments, our career and even love. Of course, sometimes our judgment is driven by subconscious biases,…
Trump rally defies market consensus
Market Recap There is no doubt that last week will be a week to remember for the world, the election of Donald Trump as President. For all the fear around such a result in the lead up to voting day, it turned out to…
US Presidential Election: The Nuclear Option
Donald Trump bad. Hilary Clinton good. That is the general narrative on most discussions around the impact of the 2016 US Presidential election on the global economy, the US economy and the Irish economy. The Economist Magazine has become the latest media publication to…
Annual budget sideshow is just a distraction
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes Another year, another budget! This time every year in Ireland the focus moves to the budget announcement of the Irish government. We are forced…
Economic Growth and Asset Prices…..
The OECD released their latest Interim Economic Outlook, warning that “the global economy is projected to grow at a slower pace this year than in 2015, with only a modest uptick expected in 2017”. This is another case of groundhog day, for years now…
Retirement planning; the future is not that far away
In the film “Back to the Future”, Marty McFly transported from 1985 to the year 2015 in the Doc’s DeLorean time machine. The fact that they had flying cars in the future shows how far away 2015 seemed to those in 1985. Now while…
Key points from Janet Yellen’s speech
In April I wrote a blog “Central banks and the certain uncertainty paradox”, reminding everyone that these institutions are no more certain than anyone else about how economic conditions will unfold. Still, market participants continue to hang on every word from the leaders of…
The importance of critical thinking
It is not often I share links from the Daily Mail but I have to share this article from Jamie Carragher – “English players are weak… we think we are making them men but we’re creating babies” – an excellent piece on the failure…
Thoughts on BREXIT, breaking up with Europe
Sacré bleu! Hearts are breaking across Europe, as the European establishment has been jolted by the surprise result that Britain has voted to leave. As one might expect the initial reaction has been an emotional one, the innate fight-or-flight response of market participants has…
Words of Wisdom from Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali once said that “It’s not bragging if you can back it up”. As the world reflects on the passing of a legend, and his 74 years on this planet, it is fair to say that Ali lived up to his claim “I…
