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AUD/USD months-ahead view – below 0.59

  • outlooks for their respective main commodities, posing downside risks over the medium term
  • Oil prices have plunged over the past year, partly due to excess supply, but also due to a dire economic outlook
  • metals tend for follow (or co-move with) oil
  • iron ore prices have help up … mainly due to supply bottlenecks .. Once those have been cleared, there’s potential for iron to more closely reflect the deterioration in demand. So too for coal
For the AUD
  • multi-month, we hold a negative bias … targeting as low as 0.59. 

Goldman Sachs analyst on downside risk for US equities

Goldman Sachs’s chief equity strategist, David Kostin spoke Tuesday with CNBC

  • “There’s a little bit of asymmetry in terms of the downside risk toward a level in the S&P 500 of around 2,000, which is down almost 25%, and upside of around 10% to a target at the end of the year of 3,000”
Unpicking/deciphering that – he thinks lower is more likely.
More:
  • important investors not get too keen to buy
  • during the 2008 financial crisis the market took several months of violent moves up and down before ultimately putting in a lasting bottoming on March 9, 2009
  • “I would just remind you that in 2008 in the fourth quarter there were many different rallies…but the market did not bottom until March of 2009” 

6 ways to think about risk

1  Risk is not the same as volatility. Assets can be volatile on the upside as well as the downside. Risk should instead be viewed as the permanent loss of purchasing power.

2 A risk should not be evaluated based its frequency. Some risks only have to happen once to be catastrophic.

3 Sophistication and knowledge are not a form of or substitute for risk management.

4 Although following the crowd may feel comfortable, risks are just as catastrophic whether you suffer with company or suffer alone.

5 Bullish consensus manufacturers the greatest risks because nobody is prepared and everyone runs for the exits at the same time. Strong optimistic consensus provides a sense that nothing can go wrong. This is why the greatest catastrophes seem to come out of the blue.

6 Activity, research and analysis provides a false sense of control over the future. However devastating losses rarely due to a lack of brain power or analytical prowess.

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