The 2019 ASFA Conference wins the MEA NSW Association Event of the Year
ASFA is very excited to announce that at the Meetings and Events Australia awards, MEALIVE 2019 Awards, held at the ICC Sydney Studios and broadcast via a live web stream on Friday 29 May, our ASFA Conference won MEA NSW Association Event of the Year.
The awards spanned categories – Events of the Year, Company, Individual including Outstanding Contribution Award plus three industry awards, being Education & Training, Event Legacy and Innovation.
The virtual red carpet kicked off at 5.30pm AEST and included a best dressed competition, special guests and live entertainment throughout the event.
We’re so thrilled and can’t wait to see everyone at this year’s 2020 ASFA Conference in Brisbane.
Economics Committee ME Bank hearing
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics heard from ME Bank, as well as ASIC and APRA at a public hearing by video conference on 3 June 2020. The hearing is part of the committee’s ongoing review of the four major banks and other financial institutions.
On 14 May 2020 the committee scrutinised ME Bank on its actions earlier this year in restricting customers’ access to redraw facilities. Since ME Bank’s appearance, the committee has sought information from APRA and ASIC on ME Bank’s conduct and engagement with the regulators on this issue.
Inside the mind of investors during COVID-19
What’s happening inside the minds of investors during these tumultuous times and how can you measure it?
Dr Hasan Fallahgoul, a mathematician in the Monash University School of Mathematics Centre for Quantitative Finance and Investment Strategies, has been analysing ‘StockTwits’, a social media platform designed for sharing ideas between investors, traders, and entrepreneurs.
He has just published a 32-page paper which takes a deep dive into posts on StockTwits during the pandemic to explore investor beliefs, sentiment and disagreement.
“There are several unexplored and exciting directions for further investigation of social media platforms such as the StockTwits dataset,” Dr Fallahgoul said.
Dr Fallahgoul analysed almost 3.7 million messages posted to the StockTwits platform between November 30, 2019, and March 31, 2020, and found that the ‘disagreement’ between bulls and bears reached an extreme level on March 23, the day the market bottomed and a sharp reverse after this date when stocks began rising.
Investors with intermediate experience were most common, followed by novice and professional users.
“The study found that professional investors were more pessimistic, and posted more often on StockTwits, than novice and intermediate investors,” Dr Fallahgoul said.
RBA survey finds 79 per cent of experts say JobKeeper should continue or expand
In this month’s Finder RBA Cash Rate Survey™ – 43 experts and economists weighed in on future cash rate moves and other issues related to the state of the Australian economy.
While all experts surveyed (43/43) correctly predicted the cash rate to hold at 0.25 per cent , 4 in 5 of those who weighed in on JobKeeper (79 per cent) said that the program should either be extended or continued.
A quarter of respondents (24 per cent) said the program should be extended, while half (48 per cent) said it should continue but be limited.
Only a fifth of experts (21 per cent) said that the JobKeeper payment should be abolished as soon as businesses can reopen at full capacity.
