Market Update – March 2024
28/03/2024Market Update – April 2024
22/04/2024
Issue 24, March 2024
From the MDs' Desk
Welcome to our 24th edition of Affinity Insights.
Welcome back!
We have jumped straight into a busy start to the year, with market activity and portfolio changes, along with organising our first Market Update. Two members of staff, Jessica Genovas and Molly McGinn are currently completing their Professional Year and Nicholas Miller, who has been with us now for over 18 months, is seeing more and more clients. We held our first Market Update on Monday, 18th March with our Investment Committee. It was a huge success!
In 2024, we want to continue to provide you with useful and interesting investment market commentary to help you stay across the Australian and global share markets, and to help you build an even better investment portfolio.
We do hope you enjoy this issue of Affinity Insights, and we welcome any feedback or suggestions for future topics.
From Rodney M. DeGabriele and Tony Vikram
Market Update – March 2024
We conducted our first Market Update webinar on Monday, 18th March 2024.
We reflected on the last quarter of 2023 and provided an update on the 2024 Market Outlook.
If you missed the webinar or would like to re-watch it, you can view it here.
Staff Update - Jessica Genovas
On the 11th of March we celebrated Jessica’s 4 year tenor.
In this time, Jessica has developed her wide ranging skills from starting in Client Services, to managing the AFSL application and implementation, to now having finished her studies, and is now an Associate Advisor in training to be a fully-fledged financial adviser before years end.
Thank you, Jessica, for all your hard work and dedication, and we cannot wait to see what the next chapter holds for you.
Is Nvidia really the 'most important stock' on the planet?
Nvidia’s staggering growth and surging share price is drawing comparisons to previous bubbles. How should investors approach this mania?
Goldman Sachs called it “the most important stock on planet Earth”. Veteran tech analyst Dan Ives of US research firm Wedbush called it “probably the most important earnings that we’ve seen from any company in the market for the last five years”.
Whatever hyperbolic phrase you prefer, it’s fair to say that there was just a little bit riding on the December quarter earnings result from artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia.
Financial Planning for Women: Closing the Super Gap
“I was desperate to understand money. Not to make it, to understand it. I wanted to know how it worked, and I wanted to know so that I would have enough and would be able to make good financial decisions.” Mellody Hobson, chairwoman of Starbucks Corporation.
International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.
Unfortunately, in finance women are not equal. According to the federal government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency annual update, the gender pay gap is 21.7 per cent. It means on average, for every $1 men earn in Australia, women earn 78c.
Contribution caps from 1 July 2024 confirmed
The annual concessional contribution (CC) and non-concessional contribution (NCC) caps will increase to $30,000 and $120,000 respectively on 1 July 2024. This follows the release of the Average Weekly Ordinary Times Earnings (AWOTE) figure for December 2023.
How having one owner helps Mona Foma
The Tasmanian arts festival gets much of its funding from a single person in professional gambler and MONA owner David Walsh.
There’s not that many arts festivals where the mainstream likes of Paul Kelly and Queens Of The Stone Age share a bill with queer retellings of Filipino folktales, or French-Korean children playing Latin-American music.
But then Mona Foma, which runs until early March in Hobart and Launceston, exists essentially on the public-spirited whim of one man.
What not to miss in Australian travel this year
From an $18,000-a-night suite in South Australia to a 25-day, bucket-list ‘Highlights of Australia’ trip, here’s what’s new on the home front.
Australians flocked to Europe and other international destinations en masse last year, but domestic tourism, too, has rebounded strongly since the country reopened. Government figures show domestic visitor spend is on track to reach $172.6 billion by 2028 – 61 per cent more than before the pandemic lockdowns. Meanwhile, 9.3 million international tourists are expected to visit Australia this year, reaching 98 per cent of 2019 levels.