A Longer View

September 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder and CEO There is an old saying: that when you are up to your knees in alligators, it is hard to remember that the original plan was to drain the swamp.   In 2021, the...

The Top Australian Enterprises in 2020

August 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder and CEO Each year we release Ruthven Institute’s Profitability Survey of the nation’s 2000 largest enterprises. The clear, and perhaps surprising, leader of Australia’s best performing enterprises of 2020 is Moose Toys.  This innovative Australian-owned...

The Importance of Proper Classifications

July 2021 Phil Ruthven, AM A lot of executives and directors still describe companies in market terms, rather than industry terms. This practice is one of the dangerous distortions to have emerged from the market-oriented focus of the post-Industrial age....

Tectonic Shifts

June 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder and CEO The term ‘tectonic shift’, while applicable to the world’s moving mantle plates (with some devastating results at times), is now also used to describe huge economic and sociological changes. Several of these...

Forecasting: Folly or Responsibility?

April 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder & CEO “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” So said Niels Bohr, a Danish Nobel laureate in atomic physics in the early 20th century. Economists trot out this quote perhaps...

Australian Stock Market Perspective

March 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder & CEO The Australian share market, with some 2240 listed entities, has a market capitalisation closing on $3 trillion in 2021. However, the Australian share market has fewer star performers than the United States’...

Sharing the Wealth: Labour and Capital

February 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder & CEO A good way to start a vigorous debate is to argue the case of what shares employees and businesses take from the economy. Who is winning; and is it fair or justified?...

New Year's Resolutions in 2021

January 2021 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder & CEO New Year’s resolutions have a habit of not surviving the end of the festive season. However, 2020 was a bizarre and traumatic year for individuals, households, businesses, politicians, religions and, especially, health...

Farewelling 2020

December 2020 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder & CEO A lot of the world’s 7.8 billion population will be glad to see the back of 2020. It has been a year of crises across health, politics, trade, economies at large and...

Interest Rates and Exchange Rates

November 2020 Phil Ruthven AM, Founder & CEO Interest rates and exchange rates affect households and businesses alike. Therefore, it is helpful to know where both are headed as we navigate our way through, and out the other side of,...