Weekly market & economic update – 18 February 2011

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Headline developments of the past week There was good news out of China with January inflation coming in lower than expected owing to a lower than expected rise in food

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J.P. Morgan Collateral Management offers automated use of gold

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First tri-party agent to accept gold J.P. Morgan today announced it is the only tri-party collateral manager to accept physical gold as collateral to satisfy securities lending and repo obligations

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Lending lifts but consumers still cautious

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Lending finance; ABARE Crop Report; RBA Board minutes Lending rose in December. Total lending finance rose for the fourth consecutive month up by 2.4 per cent in December. Lending totalled

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RBA Testimony – Rates solidly on hold

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Semi-annual testimony The Reserve Bank Governor has delivered the clearest message yet that interest rates are on hold for some time. The tone and comments from the testimony is consistent

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CMC Markets predicts nice and nasty earnings season

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Every earnings season holds a couple of surprises. Some nice, some nasty. The nice surprises are going to come from the mining companies in line with higher commodity prices while

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Investor Signposts: Week Beginning February 13 2011

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The big picture The big issue across the globe at present is inflation. At the start of the year sharply rising food prices prompted riots in Algeria, with dissatisfaction quickly

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Investor Signposts: Week Beginning February 6 2011

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The big picture China is now the second largest economy in the world. Australia ranks as 13th biggest. But Australia is regarded as an advanced economy whereas China is defined

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Investor Signposts: Week Beginning January 23 2011

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The big picture In general, investors find it an easy task to work out how the Australian sharemarket is performing. It is merely a case of looking at a benchmark

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Investor Signposts: Week Beginning January 16 2011

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The big picture Humans like to think that they control most things. Then along comes a natural disaster like a flood and it reinforces the fact that there are many

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Growth assets should deliver returns in 2011, Russell global outlook says

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Global assets neither expensive nor cheap Equities favoured but international preferred over domestic Riskier asset classes such as equities and property are expected to present the best value this year

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