The government is struggling for clear air on the cusp of an election and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, with nothing to lose, decided to square up, writes Phillip Coorey.The country has imposed a $130 million tax on Digicel Pacific, disrupting the $2.1 billion buyout of the Pacific telco by Telstra and the Australian government.&
Kostin said he attributed the rebound in US equities to a return of individual investors and shorting by hedge funds. “We continue to recommend investors own highly-profitable growth stocks relative to the longest duration, unprofitable growth stocks.” It also took an ax to expenses on two stock ETFs, previously known as the $US1.3 billion iShares MSCI USA Multifactor ETF and the $US911 million iShares MSCI International Multifactor ETF . It cut fees on the former to 0.08 per cent from 0.2 per cent, and to 0.15 per cent for INTF, from 0.3 per cent.
The FTSE 100 has risen 2.1 per cent so far this year, compared with a 5.9 per cent drop in the pan-European STOXX 600.Over the past 25 years, April has provided 2.3 per cent gains on average for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index and only seven negative returns, the least of any month. “We are sceptical that the Vice-Premier’s comments mark a genuine reversal in policy. After all, we haven’t seen any evidence in the form of actual follow-through with those comments so far. As such, we suspect the ‘common prosperity’ agenda could continue to linger over the stock market for a while yet.”
BofA is forecasting five 25 basis point rate increases in 2022 and two more in 2023 which would take the cash rate to 1.75 per cent by mid-2023, still below its estimate of neutral around 2.0-2.5 per cent.