Reading time: 2 minutes
Commodity markets including metals and energy sectors have been on a wild ride over the last 18 months. A synchronised global lockdown in the first quarter of 2020 hit global commodity markets hard and led to WTI oil future prices trading below zero for the first time in history (which we wrote about previously here).

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The topic of inflation has been covered ad nauseam this year. Will it spike, prompting rate hikes from central banks? Or is it a transitory function of Covid-related supply bottlenecks and readjustments?
Looking through the noise of the debate, the pullback in U.S.

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The Asian technology sector has suffered a pullback in recent months, even as global equity markets – and the global tech sector in particular – have continued to power ahead. This suggests the pullback largely reflects regional factors – namely the tightening of regulatory scrutiny by Chinese authorities of its major technology companies.

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The first six months of 2021 has seen a maturing of the equity market recovery since the ‘COVID crash’ early last year and an associated rotation in popular investment themes. This note considers some potentially interesting investment themes for the remainder of the year.

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Looking at headline returns is a great way to quickly ascertain how much your portfolio has increased or decreased in a certain timeframe, but it tells us little in terms of how much risk has been attached to the investment, and how much of the return can be explained by movement in the wider market.

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Reading time: 4 minutes
Last year, U.S. tech stocks carried on as if the global pandemic never occurred, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 returning 48.9% for the calendar year compared to 18.4% for the S&P 500. With everyone locked inside, more money was spent shopping online (Amazon),

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With global growth benefiting from the vaccine rollout and re-opening of shuttered parts of the economy, so-called ‘value’ investment exposures have been performing, and could continue to perform, relatively well. This note outlines three potentially attractive global value opportunities from the suite of BetaShares funds.

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Companies today rely increasingly on digital technologies to conduct their business and engage with customers, business partners and employees. In a digitally connected world, cybercrime presents ongoing risks and threats to companies operating in all industries.
As exposure to, and reliance on network systems,

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Reading time: 3 minutes
Last year, we looked at some interesting data for total ASX ETF net flows across asset classes. In case you missed it, you can see the post here.
Given the positive feedback we received on the article, we thought we would provide an update on the top asset class flows of 2021 so far.

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Ever since the unexpected result of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the UK market has, for many investors, fallen into the “too hard” basket. Years of uncertainty due to the implications of Brexit, Covid-led disruptions and the less-than-stellar initial Government response to the pandemic have led to UK equities being one of the least loved global developed markets.

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