Homebuyer confidence dips under weight of natural disasters and rising costs of living

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Leading lenders mortgage insurer Genworth Financial (Genworth) has today released the March 2011 Genworth Homebuyer Confidence Index (HCI) – a biannual measure of borrower and would-be borrower sentiment. The index

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Strong balance sheets fuel dividend growth, Russell says

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Australian dividends increase 6.4% Dividend yields rival term deposits Dividends are on the rise with the average dividend across the equity market growing 6.4% over the last six months, according

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Aussie equities underperform global peers

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Sharemarket Insights The Australian sharemarket has significantly underperformed other major overseas markets this financial year. Some of the factors that have led to this under-performance include higher domestic interest rates,

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$US breaking down, $A breaking higher

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Key points The $A is continuing to push further above parity against the $US, reaching a 29 year high. This reflects a combination of strong commodity prices, $US weakness and

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Regulators should not judge super funds on size alone, Russell warns

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Recommends trustees use comprehensive test to meet scale requirements Know your fund first – evaluate before reacting to scale concerns Russell Investments is calling on trustees and industry regulators to

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BetaShares U.S. Dollar ETF quadruples in size in a month

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BetaShares U.S Dollar ETF (ASX Code: USD) AUM reaches $50 million USD consistently ranking as one of top three most actively traded ETFs BetaShares passes $120 million in AUM three

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Budget deficit soars to near record high

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Federal budget The underlying budget deficit deteriorated in January and now stands just shy of record highs. In the 12- months to January, the budget deficit totalled $62.3 billion, an

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AIST/ Russell launch Super Engagement Index and research

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Superannuation important to 85% of Australians’ retirement A third of fund members don’t know employer contribution amounts New index will allow superannuation funds to track member engagement The Australian Institute

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Insync FM Sees 2011 as a good time to buy global shares

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Why International Equities Now? International equity fund manager, Insync Funds Management, believes that now is the time to buy global stocks. “Over the last ten years large cap global shares

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Price war: Petrol selling below cost price

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Weekly Petrol Price According to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, the national average Australian price of unleaded petrol fell by 0.2 cents per litre to 143.0 cents a litre in

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