The S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) posted a 1.9% gain for the week while all three US benchmarks moved higher over the five days.
Here are my three key investor takeaways from the week.
What next for property?
It was all about Australian property during the week, with APRA finally outlining their approach to slowing down a booming residential property market, ultimately forcing the banks to measure loan affordability using a higher interest rate.
At the same time, the Victorian government released a policy in which they will take equity in new home buyers’ homes.
But ultimately, property comes down to three factors: immigration, supply and the availability of credit. Pulling one lever will likely do little to the long term trend.
Featured: Property market jargon buster from Rask’s (free!) property course
Energy crisis
Contrarians had their day in the sun during the week, with the energy crisis engulfing the Northern Hemisphere sending the prices of everything from oil, gas, coal and uranium businesses higher.
Energy consumers and wholesalers are being forced to pay whatever they need to in order to get their hands on supply.
Some are suggesting this is a multi-year issue, due to sustained underinvestment and ‘ESG’ priorities starving the sector of capital. However, the rally in energy companies seems decidedly short-term.
As evidenced by the rally in iron ore, which had many predicting another Super Cycle, popular trends tend to run hard, but only for a short period of time until reality sets in.
Crypto mania continues
Finally, there was hope that the crypto frenzy had begun to settle, but news during the week that George Soros had purchased a multi-million dollar holding in Bitcoin has sent the price to new highs.
The highlight (or lowlight) was Shiba Inu, a so-called joke coin named after a breed of dog that has seen its price double in just a few days as speculation continues to grow; the issue coins are now worth over $11 billion.
