At the October meeting of Investment we discussed the presentation by Shaw and Partners, Stockbrokers from Melbourne, who spoke at Benalla on 18th September 2018.

We also looked at the interesting question of “Will rising US interest rates drive stocks down”? From the data shown stocks in the US had risen in 10 out of 11 cycles when interest rates in the US had been rising.

The final item for the afternoon was an article by Shane Oliver on “Five charts to keep an eye on regarding the global economy”. This article studied global business conditions, global inflation, the US Yield Curve, the US dollar and World Trade Growth. It came to the conclusion that on balance these indicators suggest the outlook remains okay.

Later in October we have observed an increased volatility in markets which will provide discussion for our November meeting which is on Friday 2nd. November at 1.30pm in the U3A room.
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Margaret Jenkins

At the September meeting of Investment we looked at a small number of shares from the August reporting season. We studied the main points reported by those companies, their reported net profit after tax and the dividend they had given shareholders. From their subsequent graphs we could see the effect these points had on their share price since they had reported.

The second topic for the afternoon was “Six things every investor should consider in their investment plan”. The subheadings for this included Investment goals, return expectations, exit prices, asset allocation, portfolio monitoring and rebalancing and responding to market events.

During 2018 we have been trying to cover a range of topics to interest the members of Investment Group. With this in mind we also mentioned the visit by Melbourne based stockbrokers Shaw and Partners on Tuesday 18th September 2018.

The next meeting of Investment will be on Friday 5th October at 1.30pm in the U3A room.
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Margaret Jenkins