Tim Treadgold

If the mining boom is Australia's economic salvation, as we were told in last night's federal budget, why are WA and Queensland doing all the heavy lifting?

Many Australian businesses may have no qualms about trading with China, but the national government may be forced into a corner on the issue.

Price fixing is illegal. What about product pegging? If you haven't heard that expression before, get used to it because it is about to revolutionise Australian retailing.

The gold price is a remarkably accurate indicator of the state of the world economy.

If you thought the global commodities boom was running out of puff, think again. The latest analysis shows that this is not really a boom at all, it is the biggest economic revolution in the past 100 years.

The CME should be careful what it wishes for as the good times roll.

Would you like a banker permanently positioned in your boardroom, or bedroom, because that could happen if the banks lose the infamous Bell Group legal battle.

Higher-than-expected construction costs are hurting the government’s great infrastructure project – the NBN.

Too many shops! That is the awful reality for traditional retailers, and investors in retail-focused funds, because there is no hope of a sudden revival of shopping as we have known it.

Carmaker Hyundai is turning an accepted form of process management on its head in a major attack on costs and quality control.

"Doomed from the day it was conceived, and rightly so". They were the opening words used in this column five months ago about the proposed merger of the Australian and Singapore stock exchange - and they're worth repeating today.

Investors should be worried by government rumblings in Brazil about mining giant Vale.

Tipping the gold price, and the future price of gold stocks, is a mug's game, unless a clear value gap can be demonstrated - which is what appears to have been done in a rather interesting piece of recent research.

It’s best to steer clear of businesses that don’t have profit as their primary motive for existing.

Most Australians have never heard of Dutch Disease, but they will soon because it is the financial phenomena playing a key role in killing resource sector construction jobs.

The market’s response to the planned carbon tax has been instructive.

Buy when others are fearful. That piece of advice made Warren Buffett one of the world's richest people, and it could make a fortune for anyone prepared to plunge into massively discounted Australian uranium stocks.

Asset correlation has already produced some unintended consequences – and there will be more.

"Oh please, hit me again!" That's what management at the ANZ Bank ought to be saying after a conservation movement attack yesterday backfired to the tune of a $908 million profit for the bank's owners.

A gas project at Dongara could have a major effect on WA’s energy sector.

If Pankaj and Radhika Oswal have set out to deliberately infuriate most Australians then they are doing a damned fine job, though it seems more likely that what we're watching is a carefully planned public relations campaign.

WA property prices won’t be in the doldrums for too long.

As the Middle East collapses into its latest bout of instability there are lessons to be learned by investors and managers. Investors should be buying gold and energy stocks, managers should be reviewing business succession plans.

Australia’s financial ‘centres’ might need to take a tip or two from Perth about how to make it as a branch office.

Complaining about the $35.9 billion National Broadband Network has become a pointless exercise. The real question, now that it is being built, is how will we pay for it, and the nasty answer is a compulsory levy.

The figures might look good for Gina Rinehart now, but there’s plenty of upside.

Hang on to your hat and watch your savings because if last night's sharp rise in the price of gold is an accurate guide, a long-predicted wall of inflation is about to break over the world.

Despite the strong profits miners are expected to announce this month, rising costs and tax imposts are major concerns.

Officially, if you use the New York Stock Exchange as your measuring stick, the global financial crisis ended last night.

An insider-trading scandal in the US could have echoes here.

Tragic as the Queensland floods have been, the real lesson we are about to learn with the proposed flood tax is that government, and its inability to curb spending, not the weather, is the greatest threat to the future.

Africa is looming larger on the radar for Australian miners as a combination of factors entices investment there.