Columnist Steve Johnson

While stock prices appear cheap, our managing director is concerned that the economic and share price ramifications of this year's events may only just be beginning. We normally devote the cover story of our last issue each year to our annual

Although very little was actually resolved, there were plenty of worthwhile suggestions to come out of the emergency G20 summit in Washington. More international co-ordination between governments and central banks, a common set of international

Westpac was the last of the big four to report its 2008 results, sheeting home its $3.9bn profit last week. The reported profit was up 11.8% on the previous year, but was boosted by one-off gains on the float of BT Investment Management ($86m) and

If your financial security depends on the All Ordinaries surpassing its 1 November 2007 close of 6,854 any time soon, you might want to reconsider your retirement plans, because there's a real risk that this bear market will last 10 or 20 years.

The sharemarket has delivered plenty of surprises this year, but one of the most perplexing is that, despite overall falls of roughly 40%, we've seen relatively few buying opportunities among blue chips. Good things, however, come to those who