Glenn Freeman: Welcome to 2020. And as another decade kicks off, we speak to some of our analysts about what lies ahead for investors across the various sectors.

Grant Slade: Going forward now into 2020, we expect to see further contraction in housing starts. We forecast around another sort of 10 per cent contraction in fiscal 2020. But again, that's well priced when you look across our Aussie building materials and other Aussie housing exposed names. What wasn't well priced in early 2019 was the resilience of the US housing market. So, after a soft 2018 and soft start to 2019, a number of US housing exposed names sold off and we highlighted that as an opportunity to gain exposure to quality names like narrow moat James Hardie and other US housing related names such as the home builders. Looking forward, we expect US housing to grind higher in 2020. But we're seeing in terms of valuation the opposite dynamic. So, investors have rushed back into this space. Those stocks have performed well. And so, we expect those same names to underperform going into 2020.

Lex Hall: I think electric vehicles will continue to be a big theme, because we're increasingly seeing research saying that electric vehicles will compete with internal combustion engine vehicles on price and performance. Charging infrastructure will be made great advances, I think. We heard this year in 2019 from one person in particular who thinks that Tesla will reach $6,000 a share. It's now at $381. So, that's about as bullish as it gets. Elsewhere, I think the trade war will continue to flare. We spoke this year to Ron Temple from Lazard Asset Management, and he thinks that's the case. He also thinks, interestingly, that it won't be just an economic war, but it will increasingly become and is viewed by Americans as a national security threat. Another interesting thing, I think the election next year, I think Trump will be reelected. I don't think the Democrats have got time to sell Michael Bloomberg who's a viable alternative, but I'm not sure if he can rally the punters in America. Locally, I think housing will become more expensive, and that will hurt retail spending and retail stocks.

Gareth James: So, I think the interesting thing about 2019 was the change in the outlook for interest rates. So, in late 2018, people were expecting interest rates to keep rising into 2019. What actually happened was that interest rates were cut a number of times in 2019. And so, we saw bond yields contract pretty rapidly. And that's pretty important for company valuations. So, what we saw was a strong trend of yield stocks rising very quickly, P/E multiple expansion and we saw a continuation of the trend of strong rises for technology stocks as well. Looking into 2020, it will be interesting to see how that continues. I think if interest rates reverse and we're seeing bond yields expand, that we may see a reversal of that trend. But our advice to investors is to focus less on what's happening with interest rates and yield compression and P/E multiple expansion, those kind of things, and more on the underlying earnings of companies, the economic moats that exist to protect those earnings and those kind of things, because they're much more easy to assess, and they're probably a more reliable determinant of company valuations going forward.


Nathan Zaia: It's going to be another tough next year for the major banks. We're not expecting any major recovery in credit growth, and margins will probably come under even more pressure as the RBA is likely to cut rates. Some banks will get a little bit of a reprieve on customer remediation front, having already taken their pain. But I guess dividends is where a lot of retail investors focus, and I don't think they're as safe as they have been in days gone past, simply because regulatory scrutiny is at an all-time high, capital requirements keep going up. So, that's an area where we'll have to keep an eye on.