Articles by Pete Wargent

Pete is a Chartered Accountant, Chartered Secretary and has a Financial Planning Diploma. Using a long term approach to building businesses, investing in equities, & owning a portfolio he achieved financial independence at the age of 33. Visit his blog

Here are some COVID-19 figures… Globally there are now more than 657,000 cases of the Coronavirus, and more than 30,400 deaths. On a global basis new cases continue to climb to 65,000 per day and rising. With the exponential increase continuing, it’s only a matter of time before total global known cases ascend to 1…

It feels kind of weird looking at historical population data knowing that immigration will effectively be subsequently halted in H1 2020. But I guess it’s partly relevant to the extent that it shows how interconnected we all are these days, and why an Aussie shutdown will eventually become essential. Net overseas migration of +232,000 over…

We’re about to observe a severe test of Australia’s capacity to deal with adversity, with the economy already in part shutting down. A lot has been said about over the past decade about the record pile of household debt and the ability of Aussies to service it. Most of the increase in household debt took…

Australia’s population keeps growing. Permanent and long-term arrivals into Australia totalled 844,960 over the year to November, up 2 per cent from a year earlier, but just a notch lower over the past two months. Net of departures, total arrivals were around 297,000, implying population growth of around 380,000 or 1½ per cent after accounting…

Why do people procrastinate when it comes to saving a deposit or investing in property? Intellectually, I suspect that most people know they should invest, but most people make very poor plans for their financial futures, if they even plan at all. Here are a few of the reasons why people delay investing: 1. Fear…

Too many of us have a natural tendency to believe that we’ve achieved everything through our own hard graft. It’s all too easy to downplay the fortunate aspects of our circumstances (in my case, for example, being born in a developed country, to well-educated parents, who ensured that I had a good schooling). And then…

Bankruptcies hit a 26-year low So don’t believe everything you read about financial stress: stress is declining and the rate cuts have been working. In the December quarter bankruptcies fell to their lowest level since December 1994. There were just 3,385 bankruptcies in the December 2019 quarter, for a -10.6 per cent decline on the…

We’ve all heard and prosecuted the bear case on Aussie property (and how!) over the past 15 years or so. But what’s the other side of that trade? Here’s the tripartite thesis… 1. The Big Australia The Big Australia, while not formally adopted as a policy, or indeed ever directly voted upon, appears to have…

The best leading indicators and surveys all seem to point a significant downturn in construction and related trades and materials employed. Interestingly, though, the detailed quarterly employment figures from the ABS showed total construction employment holding up at 1.2 million, or some 9 percent of the employed labour force. Here’s Commsec with the summary statistics:  …

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