Asking the Right Questions
First Irish UFC Champ: Inflated Egos in Business v Sport
The world of business and finance is known for being dominated by inflated egos, where the role of luck in successful outcomes is always described as skill. This is a world where the reason for a merger can be as simple as the Chief…
Market Recap: Week of July 6th 2015
Market Recap Global equity markets were drowning in a sea of red last week as the major European equity indices sold off sharply on Monday, following the weekend’s announcement by the Greek government to hold a referendum on the deal being offered by its…
All Eyes on Greece, into the Known Unknown!
European equity markets have opened sharply lower following a ‘No’ vote in the Greek bailout referendum yesterday. Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s finance minister, has resigned to help the Prime Minister reach an agreement, after certain parties requested his ‘absence’ from the meetings. “I shall wear…
Retirement Planning Considerations Amidst the Market Noise
The headline news has been dominated by Greece over the last few months, the closure of Greek banks and pictures of queuing pensioners all adding to the sense of fear among ordinary investors planning for retirement. The uncertainty and the risk of contagion across…
The Mechanics of Fixed Rate Government Bonds
Primary Market: When countries issue new bonds they are effectively borrowing from investors, in what is known as the primary market. Buyers of newly issued bonds lend capital to governments in exchange for a fixed payment, referred to as the coupon, up to a specific…
Has the world gone mad, or is it me?
These words from Ben Howard, the immensely talented singer-songwriter, ring in my head when I think about how much financial markets have been conditioned to respond to monetary stimulus. While central banks have engineered risk free rates on cash to zero (or negative in…
Pricing an illiquidity premium in liquid assets
When considering the available investment opportunity set investors should theoretically be rewarded as they move out the risk curve. That is, as an investor moves from the safest asset class, being cash (obviously requires some assumptions), there should be an extra return or premium…
