Reading Time: 3 Minutes “Why are markets rising?” Hm, interesting question MrsFrugalSamurai posed to me last night, as she clicked on another James Charles video. James Charles, for the uninitiated, is an American internet sensation/make-up artist/Youtuber. Why women are following men for make-up advice, is beyond the scope of this discussion. “I mean, why are markets rising when the economy is struggling?” Pay attention to that video woman, and get rid of these here wrinkles, I thought but did not say as I love my wife. As I stepped away from the mirror, I began to think. Why are markets rising? Everyone knows that COVID-19 has pretty much put the…
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Virgin Oil
Reading Time: 2 Minutes What’s up guys! What a difference a few days makes. Oil below zero, who woulda thought. Certainly I’ve never encountered nor learnt about this in the textbooks. You see, over the weekend the price of oil dropped down to -$37.50. Which meant if you wanted a barrel of oil, the seller would gift it to you, AND pay you $37.50 for the privilege. The reason is because of COVID-19, or rather the lack of global consumption as a result of the lockdowns from COVID-19. But how can the price of something be negative? Well, in short – the price of oil is actually a futures contract,…
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Aussie Interest Rate Cut Again
Reading Time: 3 Minutes OK, so about a minute ago I went on to type out this post and the entire FrugalSamurai site had a “fatal error” message… to say that my heart skipped a beat is to put it LIGHTLY. Too much blood, sweat and tears have been poured into this project for it to succumb to some Machiavellian cyber-attack. “DON’T YOU DIE ON ME” I yelled at the monitor, pounding my fists on the desk, willing it to BREATHE. Takes a huge breath. Be still my beating heart. Too much excitement for a Wednesday night I tell you. Anyway moving on. So, our central bank, The Reserve Bank…
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Hong Kong Protests
Reading Time: 3 Minutes Hi guys! Back again for another post tonight… Sigh, still getting over the news of last week (read here), but hey I’ve said right at the start of this blog that I’ll try and push through the good and the bad. Life’s not all about sunshine and lollipops y’know. I think too many of us on the interwebs only portray our best face forward, but life’s a biatch and sometimes we all gotta acknowledge that. Anyway. Takes deep breath. Back to it. In the last week or so you might have noticed that something is rotten in the state of Hong Kong. There’s been mass protests…
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The RBA Cut Interest Rates… So What?
Reading Time: 2 Minutes Howdy everyone! All together for another rendition of TheFrugalSamurai? You betcha! Been a headline making week for us Aussies, it’s the first time our central bank (Reserve Bank of Australia) has moved the benchmark cash rate since August 2016. With a cut in the official rate to 1.25%, this marks a historic low for our nation. But what does it all mean? In a nutshell, it means that the country ain’t doing so great, and that the powers-to-be decided they needed to do something to kick-start it. You see, lowering rates should encourage increased investment and spending through cheaper access to borrowing. How? Well, in simple…
