Nucleus Investment Insights

Join us in this week's podcast as Nucleus Wealth's Chief Investment Officer Damien Klassen, Senior Financial Adviser Samuel Kerr and Julian Campbell-Wood of Global REITS - Resolution Capital run through the following topics: Office: The dangers of contagion in US commercial property and what the future of work holds. Retail: Macro data (weak) vs micro data (OK). Industrial: The Yellow inso...

Join us as Nucleus Wealth Chief Operating Officer, Shelley George, and Senior Financial Adviser, Samuel Kerr, dissect the changes to superannuation in FY24 and how you can leverage them to enhance your personal financial landscape. From potential advantages to important considerations that could impact you, this episode has got you covered. Empowering you to develop money and investing as tools fo...

Are we heading into a classic central bank-created bust, following a boom fuelled by low interest rates? So far this has been primarily about asset prices. Is it really a recession if unemployment remains low? Minsky’s hedge, speculative and Ponzi categories are playing out as businesses/investments that can’t generate enough to cover their interest payments are heading to bankruptcy. The most obv...

This week we look at how to profit from a falling iron ore price. The market has been obsessed with the prospect of Chinese stimulus. Finally, belatedly, the realisation is emerging that the stimulus is not coming. Further, it looks as though the entire development sector is now effectively publicly owned. Utilities, designed to finish the prepaid housing, offered enough debt roll-overs to do so....

Globally producer price indexes have turned down quite decisively. China is trying to deal with deflation. There are two main explanations, with diametrically diverging investment outcomes. Under the first scenario, producer price inflation is a leading indicator for consumer price inflation. Falls in the producer price indexes will inevitably flow through to inflation indexes. Sell stocks, buy bo...

In this episode, we confront the prevailing fixation on GDP as a sole indicator of prosperity. The recent government announcement of a supplementary statistic to incorporate additional measurements of wellbeing gave hope for a more comprehensive approach, but upon closer examination, it falls short of expectations. Join us as Nucleus Wealth Chief Operating Officer, Shelley George and Chief Economi...

Over the past few months the market has had a bifurcated view. Q2 earnings are expected to be bad, down almost 10%. But, by Q4, analysts have almost 10% earnings growth factored in. So, we are approaching a critical juncture. Q4 starts in a little over 2 months time. If those forecasts are as optimistic as they seem, this reporting season should see some reasonably large downgrades. Join us in thi...

Steve Keen made a name for himself challenging conventional economic wisdom. In particular, Steve has a focus on how money creation works in the real world, which is very different from how it worked in conventional economic models. For this reason, given the recent banking issues in the US and the dramatic slowdown in credit creation that we are seeing around the world, we thought we should check...

The Australian investment landscape is dominated by oligopolies. Many of these oligopolies are large donors to both sides of politics and seem to get an easy run when it comes to tax and regulation. Michael West runs a website that focuses on independent journalism. Part of what he does is hold companies accountable over unpaid tax, poor corporate practices and government/regulatory concerns. Ther...

In his book, The Ulysses Contract, Michael Kemp explores some of the innate behaviors, biases and challenges humans face as investors. And what you can do about them. He sits down to explore these and other things with Nucleus Wealth Chief Operating Officer, Shelley George, in this episode of Nucleus Wealth Empower. Empowering you to develop money and investing as tools for living your fullest lif...

It has been a volatile 6 months in macroeconomic outlooks. A year ago, it looked as if Australia was lagging behind the US economically; a few months ago that narrative reversed. And then it flip-flopped several more times. Join us in this week's podcast as Nucleus Wealth's Chief Investment Officer Damien Klassen, Chief Strategist David Llewellyn-Smith and Senior Financial Adviser, Samuel...

Extraordinary scenes in Russia this week as a coup put a significant dent into Putin's aura of political invincibility. We examine the aftershocks for macroeconomics, political stability and investments. In particular, we look at the investment landscape for defense contractors, which ones benefit, which ones are less well positioned and where defense budgets are being spent in the aftermath o...

For the last few months, we have been talking about how the soft data (i.e. surveys and forward looking) has been looking recessionary but the hard data has been surprisingly firm. That has started to change, and in the hard data we are seeing sweeping signs of a slowdown. Join us in this week's podcast as Nucleus Wealth Chief Investment Officer Damien Klassen, Chief Strategist David Llewellyn...

Grant Williams is a titan of the financial podcasting world, interviewing the biggest names in the industry and examining the core macro arguments dominating discussions. We take the opportunity this week to quiz Grant and see where he sits on some of the biggest macro themes. Agenda: Is there a recession or soft landing? Bonds say recession by the 4th quarter, equities say earnings growth will be...

We have seen a raft of comments and discussions from the governor of the reserve bank of Australia. The message has been disjointed. What has come through, whether he realises it or not, is the fundamental disconnect between government policy and central bank policy. On one hand, Australia is being flooded with record levels of new immigrants, putting upward pressure on rents and services. Supply...

NVidia hit a market capitalisation of USD1 trillion this week after a stunning set of earnings upgrades. Data centre revenue, which is the largest part of NVidia's revenues, is expected to double over the next 90 days. But revenues have been volatile. For example, NVidia's gaming revenues halved last year, probably due to Etherium (a crypto-currency) moving to proof of stake. On one hand,...

Join Nucleus Wealth Chief Investment Officer Damien Klassen and Senior Financial Adviser Samuel Kerr for an insightful podcast episode as we delve into macroeconomic themes and strategies with Peter Boockvar, Chief Investment Officer of Bleakley Financial Group. From recessions and US interest rates to company profits and credit crunches, we navigate through the key factors shaping the financial l...

From an investment perspective, betting on vested interests to win the issue of the day has been an easy bet for the last few decades. While Nucleus admits this is no way to run a country, it is hard to invest for a different outcome when vested interests keep winning at the expense of the broader population. Our guest today has been in the thick of the battle in parliament and continues the battl...

Have you or someone you know experienced the mayhem in the rental market lately? Rents are up nationally 10.1% in the last 12 months according to SQM. Underlying that is up to 50% increases as existing tenants' leases expire, bidding wars for new properties, and inspection queues sometimes winding around the block. Where is this coming from? And what does it mean looking forward? Nucleus Wealt...

In November, China issued a sweeping directive to rescue its property sector. At face value, it was a major recalibration of its property crackdown. There are two ways to read the string of announcements: China is starting down the “whatever it takes” path. The current policies may not be enough, but they are a sign that China will keep adding more stimulus until the problem is fixed. The plan doe...

Vegetable oil prices have halved. Cereal prices are down 20%. Dairy similar. Sugar is one of the few food ingredients that is up (and Ukraine/Russia are not even major producers), but meat is down. At the same time, international shipping rates have plummeted. The Baltic Dry Index is about 75% lower than its peak in 2022. So, why are grocery prices still rising? In this week’s podcast, Nucleus Wea...

The Q1 earnings season is more than halfway through, and the results are not great. At the headline, a number of the big tech names look better than expected, overshadowing the rest of the market. But once you dig into the earnings for smaller companies, the results are more concerning. The big question is whether this is the start of the major earnings downturn that we have previously discussed o...

During COVID, right around the world governments suspended normal bankruptcy rules to keep companies alive. And it worked! Bankruptcies plunged in developed countries all over the world. But now, the rules are back to normal. Bankruptcies are starting to rise once more. Is this a sign that the business cycle is back? Will there be a "catch-up"? Will rising interest rates swamp all other...

There are early signs that the property market has bottomed, and a number of analysts are calling for prices to start rising as the RBA cuts rates. We compare this to upcoming the mortgage cliff. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? In this week's webinar, join us as Nucleus Wealth's Chief Investment Officer, Damien Klassen, Senior Financial Adviser, Samuel Ke...

Over the last few weeks, the Nucleus Wealth team discussed several times the probability of a credit crunch. Now that data is flowing through, the signs are ominous. Bank lending and credit availability have pulled back sharply. In this week’s webinar, Nucleus Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer, Damien Klassen, Chief Strategist, David Llewellyn-Smith and Senior Financial Adviser, Samuel Kerr dive i...