EWA News and Press, iShares MSCI Australia Index Fund From 07/03/22

The BoJ's insistence that inflation, running slightly above target, is not sustainable is that it is a function of higher fresh food and energy prices and the statistical impact of last year's cut in cell phone charges dropping out of the 12-month comparisons. What is missing, the BOJ say...

A shortened trading week on Wall Street will have traders focusing on the FOMC minutes, a few Fed speakers, and the June nonfarm payroll report. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a quiet week for Europe at the moment but next week is probably as close as it gets. ...

The global economic outlook has deteriorated sharply; we now expect GDP growth to be well below potential in 2023. While the near-term economic outlook is challenging, not all downturns are catastrophic - unlike those during the pandemic and global financial crisis. The economic o...

Global equity markets outside of the United States are completing a second negative quarter, with the MSCI ACWI ex US IMI Index down 11.33% in the three months through June 24. Looking at the major regions, China and other Asian emerging markets are completing a difficult quarter, wit...

Recession fears and central-bank tightening are driving market volatility. Markets have faced a laundry list of concerns this year, including new COVID-19 lockdowns and an economic slowdown in China, the Russia-Ukraine war, surging inflation, and central-bank tightening. We think ...

Recessions have gone from being a potential consequence of high inflation and rapid monetary tightening to an increasingly likely scenario. A wrath of economic indicators are expected to confirm the trend of weakening business activity. The gas stand-off with Russia isn’t e...

Australia, Japan, and Singapore are the few markets within Asia Pacific that have achieved full liberalization of their power markets. Singapore, with the highest share of thermal capacity within its power mix, has been hit the hardest, followed by Australia where thermal generation m...

The construction industry has not been so resilient. The ongoing shrinkage has meant that the construction sector in Australia has not meaningfully contributed to Australian GDP growth since 2018. The current macro setting is not a bad one for construction, though on balance we wo...

Aside from the Bank of Japan, major central banks are in a hurry to tighten financial conditions even as a cyclical slowdown weakens demand. The Bank of England hiked its base rate by 25 bp, but increased its inflation projection and warned of more forceful action if necessary. Th...

EWA has been beating the S&P 500 since my review in late January. Looking ahead, I continue to see merit to holding positions. The fund has a lot of banking exposure, which is a sector that will benefit from the central bank's decision to increase interest rates. When diversif...