Q: What do Brazil Russia India China Greece and Portugal all have in common?

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

A: At one time they have all been classified as Emerging Markets.

Greece was reclassified by MSCI as a Developed Market in June 2001 six months after it was admitted to the Eurozone. However, as the graph below clearly shows, the Greek stock market continued to perform more like an Emergin

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Time for economists to eat humble pie ... again

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

By Stein Ringen

The euro has not collapsed in value. The eurozone has not broken up; Greece has not left nor been kicked out. For someone like myself, a careful reader of the Financial Times and other media, this is a bit of a surprise. I remember last year an avalanche of predictions of t

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Budget 2012

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

A brief summary of some of the main changes arising from the latest Budget with particular emphasis on the main changes to savings, investments, pensions and capital taxes.

To read the full article, please click the link

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The good old days?

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

In this brief review of the 20th Century, we consider current events in the context of Global history and conclude that our perception of how bad things are today is probably being excessively influenced by the media to the extent that on average many of us view current conditions to be far worse

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Is the Euro Broken?

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

"A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe, face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas." Victor Hugo 1848

What a contrast

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Is "Value" more or less risky than "growth"?

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

There has been some ongoing debate recently about value vs growth investing strategies and which is more risky.

We believe that investors are compensated with higher expected returns for bearing higher investment risk.

Research from leading financial economists has identified two r

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Bull and Bear Markets

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

As the USA celebrates it's 235th birthday, Wall Street was in a generous mood by giving nearly a trillion dollars in gains this week. To be more precise, the US stock market rose every day this week, increasing by a total of 5.6 percent, as measured by the broadest US stock index, the Wilshire 50

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Should investors buy currencies to hedge against Euro risk

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

The papers were again full of recommendations at the weekend for concerned Irish investors to buy currencies as a way of hedging against Euro risk.

We repeat that we believe this is a bad investment strategy since it requires an investor to guess which currencies will "win" again

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Inflation or deflation?

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

Does Monetary Expansion Stoke Inflation?

Since the financial crisis hit in late 2008, the US monetary base has more than doubled, from about $800 billion in mid-2008 to about $2 trillion in November 2010. When the Federal Reserve announced a second round of quantitative ea

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The real problem for savers in Ireland –a lack of prudent advice

Published by Marc Westlake under Economics |

It is often said that the markets are driven by two emotions: fear and greed.

We also know that on average savers and investors can be excessively influenced by current events and led to believe that the risks are lower than they are (for example as recently seen in the property market or

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