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About Jeremy Calnan & Ian Flack Calnan Flack

Jeremy and Ian are the Directors of Calnan Flack
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Our Forecasting Record

Before we start the dictionary defines a forecast as:- Verb: forecast; predict or estimate (a future event or trend). Noun: forecast; a calculation or estimate of future events based on past events, especially coming weather or a financial trend. It’s easy to make a forecast. “I reckon my footy team the crows will play in the Grand Final this year!” Every day people from all walks of life make all sorts of predictions. “It’s going to rain today.” “Trump will never build that wall.” And “of course the Property Market is going to Crash….” But it’s actually very difficult to make a Non-Emotional Scientifically Based Prediction. It’s even harder to get it right! However, every year that’s exactly what we do. Do we always get it right? Unfortunately, No. But the statistical probability of getting it correct as often as we do is, is almost impossible! Each […] 150
By | 2017-07-26T10:07:11+00:00 July 25th, 2017|Cycles, Education, Shares, Trading|0 Comments
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Rise of the Nano House

Moore’s Law states that computer processor speeds will double every two years, in a similar way Ricardo’s Law (of Rent) explains the continually diminishing size of Hong Kong apartments! The relentless technological advancements that are driving the rise of Nano Computers are also having the same effect on apartment sizes in Hong Kong. You see at $25,000 per m2 Hong Kong apartment space is not small change. It’s no wonder developers are doing their best to extract the maximum profit from their sites by shrinking apartment sizes and building sky high – the Cantillon Effect explains this. (To read about the Cantillon Effect click here). These Micro Flats or as I like to call them, Nano-Apartments, are typically as small as 20m2 and cost $500,000! They can be as small as 11m2 in size, but rent for A$660 per month on less than a 3% yield. Remember that 12m2 is 150
By | 2017-07-24T14:41:00+00:00 July 22nd, 2017|General, Property, Wealth|0 Comments
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“It’s Only a Few Grains of Rice….”

Have you ever heard the story about the invention of the game of chess? Well the story goes something like this….. Once upon a time there was a very clever Indian mathematician who invented a board game that he called ‘Chess’. He took the game and showed it to the Emperor of India. The Emperor was so impressed with the game that he said to the inventor to name his price. The mathematician replied that all he wanted was a single grain of rice for the first square, two grains for the next square, four for the next, and eight for the next and so on for all sixty four squares on the board. The emperor chuckled to himself and immediately agreed; amazed that such a clever man would ask for so little. However, about a week later much to the emperor’s […] 150
By | 2017-07-14T15:00:06+00:00 July 14th, 2017|Education, Wealth|0 Comments
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End of Year Tax Threats and Scams

Please be advised that phone call scams are very common at tax time. If anyone calls you talking about rebates you are entitled to – they are scamming to get your bank details. If anyone calls making threats about ATO investigations claiming to be from the ATO legal department – its an extortion scam and they will try to tough talk you into making a payment to get a non existent tax case against you dropped. Its important to remember the ATO will never call demanding payments. They send out letters informing you of audits if applicable and if there was a mystery rebate you are entitled to your accountant should tell you about it. Never give bank details over the phone or your TFN. In both cases its nonsense, so if in doubt call Craig Shirley from CAS Accountants. 150
By | 2017-07-06T11:23:57+00:00 July 5th, 2017|Wealth|0 Comments
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The Cantillon Effect

In the early 1890’s Australia’s population was approximately 4 million, not bad for a country that still existed as separate states and yet according to many, Australia lay claim to an even more extraordinary fact. Melbourne housed the world’s 3rd tallest building – that’s right! Completed in 1889, the APA Australian Building was a full 12 stories or a massive 53m tall. Now to put that into context, a small colony in the Empire had the pizzazz to build the world’s 3rd tallest building? Amazing I’d say! However what followed is not dissimilar to the events of the GFC, with Australia in the early 1890’s suffering horrendous falls in both the share and property markets and the onset of a 1930’s styled depression. An enormous contraction in credit occurred with many banks either failing or having their assets frozen until they were recapitalised. But this brings about the question – 150
By | 2017-07-03T14:47:46+00:00 July 3rd, 2017|Cycles, Education, Property, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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There is NO housing Bubble (YET!)

S&P Dow Jones Indices today released the latest results for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices and the news is ALL good! Prices are up! (a 5.5% gain) The default rate on mortgages are still low with household debt at manageable levels. The demand for housing continues to exceed supply and the banks are happily extending more and more credit. We are told that the demand for housing is currently outstripping supply and inventory levels are very low.   But reading the analysis, reproduced below, has me scratching my head. NO mention of the drivers? No mention of technological advancements, the improvements in profitability, the continual enhancement of infrastructure, population growth and changing household demographics. The only mention of credit is the throw-away comment that “financing is available”….. Please understand the “The Effortless Advantage” as defined by classical economist David Ricardo. It explains how our economy functions in response to the 150
By | 2017-07-03T13:52:25+00:00 July 1st, 2017|Cycles, Education, Equities, Property|0 Comments
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If Video Killed the Radio Star then Technology Killed the TV Idol…

In 1979 the Buggles released their first Album aptly called “The Age of Plastic” which contained the cult hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star”. This song was a futuristic look back at an industry that was on the brink of collapse. You see Buggles, for all their zaniness, could correctly foresee the future long before most had woken up to the impact that technology was having in both their industry and society as a whole. Within 2 short years MTV hit our households and profoundly changed the music industry and society – just as the Buggles had foreseen. Those astute enough to see the changes were able to gain great benefit. Those who fought it lost. And those mothers who needed a social issue to worry about got what they were looking for, arguing and agonizing about the indecent denigration of social values. MTV was here in all its 150
By | 2017-07-14T15:01:07+00:00 June 21st, 2017|Cycles, Education, Wealth|0 Comments
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Long Live the Boom

Do you remember when former President Barack Obama passed landmark banking laws in response to the catastrophic 2008 Global Financial Crash? The GFC decimated investment markets and cruelly destroyed millions of Americans dreams of home ownership and employment. So, Washington responded to ensure that this would never happen again.  Laws were passed to guarantee that America, that the world, would NEVER, EVER again face such a financial calamity, When Lehman Brothers went bust, it was a close call – it was the day that capitalism and our banking system nearly systemically failed. However, the developed western world breathed a collective sigh of relief, when finally, our elected representatives had our wayward capitalist system back under control. The legislatures had done their job and legislated the capitalist genie back into the bottle.   But that was then and this is now….. It is often said that “Time is the best healer 150
By | 2017-07-03T13:54:25+00:00 June 12th, 2017|Cycles, Education, Property, Shares|0 Comments
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The Emotional Investor

Economics tell us that, or assumes, that individuals (which includes investors) act in a rational manner – that they are fully informed and make logical, sensible decisions. The news of Altair Asset Management returning investor funds at an “overvalued and dangerous time in this cycle” sent a quiver through the investment community. Has this ever been done before? A fund manager, who by definition makes his living by managing funds, emphatically saying to investors the market is cooked and I can’t manufacture any further returns for you. See: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-4-reasons-this-fund-manager-cashed-in-all-his-australian-shares-2017-6 Then this was followed up by the Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison terrifying markets with the dire warning of over Australia’s GDP growth forecasts. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/treasurer-scott-morrison-sounds-warning-over-economic-growth-in-march-quarter-20170601-gwhud2.html And then the barrage of Doomsayers started warning us of a property crash, another recession, interest rate rises, the systemic issues within our banking system and […] 150
By | 2017-07-03T13:54:53+00:00 May 31st, 2017|Cycles, Equities, Wealth|0 Comments
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Rembrandt – Painting from the Grave

We love technology – we are always trying to show our investors the positive productive impact that technology is having on society. Technology is one of our Essential Drivers of “The Effortless Advantage”. Often, we find that although people accept the impact that technology has today for some reason they struggle to accept the impact that technology has had in years gone by. Further and more bizarrely they seem to struggle with the concept that the future will be more impacted by technology than they can foresee. One of my favourite historical examples of this is “wire”. Its hard for many people today to accept just how much of in impact wire had on society and the productivity of humans. This is because the impact of the technology gain that wire had, has not only been absorbed into the economy but the technology has been surpassed to the point where we 150
By | 2017-07-14T15:01:19+00:00 April 22nd, 2017|Cycles, Education|0 Comments
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