Insights

The Greens appear to have played a deft hand and achieved a significant victory for environmental protection in Australia by stopping the handover of federal approvals to the states.

A peaceful end to Hong Kong's political crisis remains elusive, but the authorities and the protesters will be hoping for one.

The protests in Hong Kong show that the 'two political systems in the one country' formula is unworkable. One is a liberal system seeking true democracy and one is authoritarian where liberal thought and democracy are anathema.

China's repeated attempts to silence foreign reporting of Uyghur issues suggest it has something to hide.

In the current debate about house prices and bubbles, many seem to have forgotten what property indices actually represent.

Fairfax Media may look to offload its radio arm and partially float Domain, while Hoyts aims to wrap up its IPO before the year's end.

European markets took a hit on ECB securities purchasing news, while Wall Street ended flat and the Australian dollar gained some ground.

As speculation about the Australian dollar's decline intensifies, here are three stocks that could benefit from it falling further.

A bevy of official reports on Australia's energy policy are set to spark heated debate in 2015, keeping energy enthusiasts busy throughout the year.

Over the past forty years the United States dollar has experienced several boom-bust cycles spanning between 6 and 10 years. Both history and relative economic fundamentals suggest we may now be in the relatively early stages of the next great US dollar bull run.

Those opposed to renewables and addressing climate change are looking at India as their next excuse for Australia to do nothing. However India's energy minister says they'll be a "renewables superpower" and solar's off-grid advantage is lighting the way.

The RBA looks to have sensibly ruled out higher loan-to-value ratios to slow house price growth, but its current proposal is still flawed simply because there's no justification for taking any action at all.

The types of high-risk debt securities that triggered the GFC are on the rise again, and the global fallout could be catastrophic.

While the RBA continues to voice its concerns about the Melbourne and Sydney property markets, we don't actually know enough about the impact of investor activity because Treasury hasn't done any work on it.

When four ageing reactors were shutdown in the UK recently, it was ramped-up coal - not wind - which filled the void. But the renewable power is still serving the British grid well.

Operating systems should never really have to change as much as they have and maybe Microsoft has finally got the message.