Insights

After lacklustre performances on many global share markets last year, it's time to review your asset allocation.

An improvement in industry structure this year should benefit the building materials business.

Australia should leave open the option of going to war with China in the East China Sea.

Indonesia's role as a maritime Asian nation needs to be strengthened but the country's recent 'shock therapy' on illegal fishing won't go down well.

With a glut in global milk production, Australian farmers are unlikely to see any immediate benefits from the much-touted dairy deal with China.

The ECB's attempts to encourage banks to lend more and stimulate growth have had little impact, but the spectre of deflation may cause it to embrace unconventional policies.

Investors continue to drive up property prices, particularly in Sydney, but it's increasingly clear that the unprecedented levels of activity are not sustainable.

The upstream petroleum industry is ducking for cover amid plunging oil prices, but evidence suggests the gas sector will power along regardless of the downward trend.

With vendors beefing up security solutions businesses need to rethink the value proposition of storing their data on the cloud rather than in their own servers.

GST reform has proved too difficult for many governments over the past 40 years. The Coalition faces a steep challenge in succeeding where others have failed.

The strongest players in the energy and resources industries are engineering price collapses to force smaller competitors out of the market. But this assumes that the problem is a short-term one.

The Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks are in much better shape than a couple of years ago, but that doesn't mean NAB will easily offload the assets.

Job creation in the US continues to strengthen, but there are a couple of reasons why the Federal Reserve will exercise caution when it comes to lifting rates.

Buyers of Apache's remaining oil and gas assets vanish as global crude prices continue to crumble, while local energy firms look ripe for takeover.

The local market is expected to follow US and European sharemarkets lower ahead of US earnings season and jobs data due later this week.

Even if interest rates were 25 or 50 basis points lower, there would be few business capital investments ready to roll.