Life In Australia

As I continue looking for a new home for my investment funds, I’ve been reading Winning On Wall Street, by Martin Zweig.

It’s a good read - I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about taking a profit out of the stock market. It’s particularly appropriate to investors who want to put their money into the U.S. markets but is useful globally. One of Zweig’s main themes is his Super Model which aims to inform investors whether they should be fully invested in the markets or not. Zweig produces his Super Model by combining his Momentum Model and his Monetary Model and uses it to time his entries to and his exits from the stock market.

Zweig uses a monetary model to predict the market’s broad direction. There are three parts to the monetary model - The Prime Rate Indicator, The Fed Rate Indicator and the Installment Debt Indicator.

I’ve been trying to get to grips with the modelling. At the moment, the signals, both monetary and momentum, seem to indicate that the US markets are not exactly a strong buy. More good news will be needed before anyone should invest there.

Zweig’s performance has an investment adviser and tipster is extremely good, so I would judge that it’s worthwhile paying attention to what he has written.

Brisbane, Queensland is named in honour of a Brit - specifically Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane.

Brisbane was born at Largs in Ayrshire, Scotland and he was educated at the University of Edinburgh.

Between 1821 and 1825, on the recommendation of The Duke of Wellington, he held the position of Governor of New South Wales, a post he held until 1825. While Governor, Brisbane improved the land grants system and reformed the currency. He trialled crops of coffee, tobacco, cotton and flax.

In 1823 John Oxley was sent by Major-General Brisbane to find a site for a new gaol for convicts who were repeat offenders. Oxley discovered a large river flowing into Moreton Bay and convicts began arriving there in 1824. Oxley proposed that both the river and the settlement be named after Brisbane. The convict settlement became a town in 1834.

So there you have it. The city of Brisbane, like Sydney, began its history as a convict settlement and was named after a British soldier and Governer of New South Wales.

Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane died in 1860 in Largs.

After a lot of thought, we’ve decided against using my stock market gains to buy an investment property in Brisbane.

The latest real estate numbers show that house prices in Brisbane have only increased by 4.4 percent in the last 12 months. The previous 12 months showed similar price growth. Fair enough, house prices are still increasing but the rate of increase is anaemic. With market watchers predicting more interest rate hikes I don’t think there’s a great deal of steam left in the housing market.

The best time to have got into the market here was around 2001. The average house price then stood at about $150,000. By 2004 it had more then doubled to about $320,000. Fortunately, we have owned our house throughout this period. It seems unlikely that by buying another house now we’d be able to enjoy similar gains.

Today average house price in Brisbane is around $340,000 (£136,000). Of course an “average house” here is detached and quite a bit bigger than an average house in the UK so houses here are still good value for anyone coming here from the UK .

We’re thinking about using our profits from the stock market to get into the property renting market in Brisbane.

We can buy something quite nice, close to the city centre with the money we’ve made.

Here are a couple that we’ve looked at. The first has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a separate toilet and is priced at $339,000 (£135,000) .

The second has two bedrooms and two bathrooms and is priced at $315,000 (£126,000).

There’s nowhere in the UK you can get houses like these, within a couple of miles of the city centre at prices like this.

We’re looking into the tourist market vs the longer term rental market.

The tourist market is more lucrative but there’s more hassle - people coming and going every few days. The longer term rental market looks easier.

I do like to get out for a drive in the bush every now and then. I’m sorry if it’s going to offend anyone but it’s in my Toyota Landcruiser - a magnificent beast of a car - but not exactly eco-friendly. On the other hand, if we were to be involved in a crash with another car, I’d rather be in a Landcruiser than any other car. Anyway, back to driving.

People here are grumbling that the price of petrol’s about to go up again. It’s $1.31 per litre here just now - that’s £0.53 per litre. Speaking with my dad on the phone last week he was telling me the British price was about £0.94 per litre. The fact that you can get petrol cheaper here probably explains why you get a lot more 4×4’s on the road in Queensland than in the UK. I’m not just meaning in out in the bush, I’m meaning in the cities.

Just back from our weekend on the Gold Coast. We had great fun visiting the theme parks.

I can thoroughly recommend our accommodation – we spent a night in the Legend Hotel. It was modern, clean and the rooms were non-smoking.

I still cringe at a night we spend on a stop-over in Hong Kong at the Panda hotel. The skirting boards around the rooms looked like they hadn’t been dusted for years and there was a persistent smell of stale cigarette smoke in the room – eugh.

At the Legend the wife and I stayed in an en-suite studio room for $135 (£54).

The Hotel’s just about on the beach and we had a great view of the ocean from the balcony. It had a king bed, and a kitchenette with microwave/convection oven and a private balcony.

There was an interactive TV and the usual kettle and tea and coffee facilities. The trouble with a weekend away is it comes to an end all too soon and it’s back to work again tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the next break already.