Moomin Valley

Carbon Planet is a privately held Australian company "whose mission is to enable every individual and business on the planet to manage...

August was an OK month and better than recent months. Our investment return was around 5% in Australian Dollar terms, 3% in currency neutral...

A lot of nonsense is written about leveraged ETFs (ETFs that usually provide 200% long or short exposure to a given index) on the internet. ...

I recently read a very interesting article about using hedge funds to diversify that was discussed by AllAboutAlpha . Adding hedge funds to ...

I sold out of NNDS and PSPT because the expected rate of return until the takeover deals close is less than my rate of margin interest. Yes ...

Allco Equity Group continues to trade at a ridiculous valuation of $(A)1.75 per share while having net assets of $4.76 per share. The value ...

Sydney and Canberra are joint most popular cities - I do eliminate my own visits but not any Snork Maiden does from work :) New York is the ...

This is a pretty classic inverted head and shoulders. The target is around $4.50 if it plays out.

The Australian Financial Review recently (16-17 August edition) highlighted two lesser known managed futures funds offered in Australia that...

Does ">this mean that Australians will be allowed to buy unlisted US mutual funds? Or does it only cover exchange traded products? ...

As I've mentioned we're going to China later this year. Yesterday Snork Maiden's mother told her she wants to give her or us a t...

The firms discussed in this post are the European firms among the top 10 in the LPX index . I've already covered (and invested in) 3i -...

There are many "listed investment companies" (LICs) in Australia, which are similar to closed end funds in the US with the differe...

Following up from my comments on this post of Madame X, I thought I'd have another go at comparing Australian and US government spendi...

After finding that I couldn't invest in the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers funds I considered investing in two large UK listed privat...

There has been endless debate about whether the best mutual and hedge fund managers show real skill in terms of being able to achieve persis...

LPX is a global index of listed private equity firms and funds. Though I can't find a public source for the fifty stocks composing the ...

Source . This chart explains why this sector is so interesting :)

In case you didn't know, there is a U.S. Listed Private Equity ETF . The problem is that many of the companies on the list are not even ...

Unfortunately, Interactive Brokers can't add the two private equity stocks I discussed on Tuesday and Wednesday . The reason given for ...

I bet you thought that Bear Stearns ceased to exist? This fund, though now managed by J.P. Morgan, retains the Bear Stearns name. Like the L...

Lehman Brothers Private Equity is a closed end fund trading on the Amsterdam/Euronext exchange. It's only a year old. As the chart above...

I'm researching potential listed private equity investments. Currently I have a little under 7% of net worth allocated to private equity...

On Friday the Australian government announced that they are backing down on their plan to grab temporary residents' superannuation cont...

The Australian data above from the Tax Review as well as US data I've seen before refute a myth popular in get rich quick circles that ...

Challenger and Arkmile call off their legal action against each other and Arkmile drops its call for a meeting of shareholders and promises...

I've always wondered how "The Motley Fool" remains in business since the 2000-2002 bear market. Many of the companies they pra...

The NASDAQ 100 finally broke out the range it was stuck in for the whole of July. If this was an inverted head and shoulders formation (It d...

Another highlight from the tax review are these charts of the distribution of net worth and income in Australia. The chart above shows the m...

The first stage of the Commonwealth Government's tax review was released today. The 366 page document describes Australia's tax and...

I hate wall to wall carpets. Some people tell me: "all you need to do is vaccuum clean them" but I find they are extremely hard to...

PeopleSupport received a takeover offer for $12.25 per share from Indian conglomerate Essar. This is a premium to recent prices but below a...

Another bad month but not as bad in terms of absolute returns as July. However, the month was worse in risk-adjusted terms. In the chart, mo...

I finally got everything I need together and went to the Chinese Embassy (pictured above) today to submit my visa application. This is the f...

No contributions were paid into Snork Maiden's superannuation (retirement) account during July. We checked her payslip online and contri...

But at least it was better than last month. On the other hand I'm going to record "trading" losses for the first time in six m...

Arkmile is calling for the winding up of the Challenger Infrastructure Fund (CIF.AX) - sale of the assets and the distribution of the result...

61 of 84 Starbucks stores in Australia will close , including all stores in the Australian Capital Territory :( These are the only non-US st...

Some good news - Snork Maiden got a letter today from the Australian Immigration Department granting her a temporary spouse immigration visa...

I just finished reading The Superannuation Handbook 2007-8 by Koken and Smith. It is a pretty comprehensive coverage of Australia's ver...

I'm continuing to think things I discussed in recent posts . I clearly can't handle the medium term (from more than a day to month...

More than I was expecting... We decided to fly via Hong Kong as Snork Maiden doesn't need a visa to visit there (she's a PRC citizen...