Hi all, A quick note to offer guidance on the new website. As well as the layout changes that make it easier to access content for new readers, it comes with a dramatically improved sign-up and resubscription process, greatly enhanced speed, and a much better mobile experience (since 95% of traffic is now phone!). The
AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold WTI Brent Australia 200 US S&P 500 UK 100 Japan 225 Friday Eve Easy Listening
The bulls are rushing Australia’s property market. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is forecast to cut the official cash rate by 1.0% by the end of 2025, taking it to 3.10%. As illustrated below, the Albanese government recently instructed lenders to disregard student debts when assessing mortgage serviceability, which will lift borrowing capacity. The
It’s not rocket surgery. Be green, not fake. Drop the woke malarky. Drop the support for endless population growth and be honest about its devastating effects on the natural world, as well as youth prospects for housing and social progression. Be honest about the limits to growth, not pompously hypocritical to those of differing views.
The Market EAr on the mechanical bull. Stuck, but… SPX is still stuck in some sort of range, but note the short term trend line comes in at the 5700 level (futures). Next resistance above that is the 5750 area and the 200 day slightly higher. A close above that resistance and many will be
For decades, billionaire Meriton founder ‘Highrise’ Harry Triguboff has persuaded politicians to implement policies favourable to his financial interests, including mass immigration. In 2006, Triguboff claimed that Sydney’s population needed to reach 20 million by 2050. In 2010, Triguboff argued that Australia’s population needed to increase to 100 million. “I’d like to see 100 million,
Ferrous complex struggles continue. The steel output cuts have begun. The China Iron and Steel Association said this week the government was “actively deploying and promoting” its crude steel production mandate. Looming output restrictions have weighed on the market and are expected to impact demand of iron ore. “The main task facing the steel industry is
I have frequently cautioned that state and federal government plans to blanket our cities with high-rise apartments will not help Australian housing affordability and will reduce livability. The reasons are simple: it is too expensive to construct apartments. As a result, they cannot be delivered at a reasonable cost to buyers. Urbis highlighted the excessive
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) forecast that by Q2 2027, Australian real wages would be 5.9% below the Q2 2020 peak, tracking around the same level as December 2011. Extrapolating the RBA’s forecast suggests that Australian real wages may not recover to the Q2 2020 peak until around 2040.
DXY is back. AUD is not. Lead boots are heavy. Commods says no bueno for growth. Big miner meh. EM meh. Junk a bit better. Yields won’t budge. Stocks only go up. DXY breaking out. EUR breaking down. Ordere restored. Nobody got dollars. And you’re going to need them if you’re chasing tech stocks again.
The official Q1 CPI inflation print from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that the policy-important trimmed mean inflation fell to 2.9% year-on-year to be within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) inflation target of 2% to 3%. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the Melbourne Institute’s monthly trimmed mean inflation
Australia is experiencing a housing crisis because its home prices are among the highest in the world compared to incomes, we have some of the most indebted households in the world, and tenants are paying a record share of their income on rent. According to CoreLogic, the total value of Australia’s housing stock was $11.3
AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold WTI Brent Australia 200 US S&P 500 UK 100 Japan 225 Easy Listening
Propaganda is maddening in its resistance to all truth. The Australian. New sources of gas that have been earmarked to fix a looming east coast shortfall will not be ready in time and cost just as much as imported LNG, a report from Rystad Energy on behalf of gas pipeline operator Jemena has concluded. …But
Gone are the days of iron ore’s Pavlovian response to China yawnulus. In days of yore, the following would have sent iron ore nuts. BofA. ThePBOC, NFRA and CSRC jointly announced a raft of monetary, consumption, capital market, and property measures to stimulate the economy. In terms of 1) monetary easing–PBOC will cut the RRR
Goldman’s excellent Andrew Boak is still on point. Australia’s recent CPI data showed that core inflation is now tracking well within the RBA’s 2-3% target band, with six-month annualised growth in the trimmed-mean measure decelerating 25bps to 2.5%. Compositionally, a range of wage-sensitive services items showed significant disinflation, offsetting stickiness in some government-linked administered prices.
Twitter (X) user Oliver in WA posted the following stunning chart showing how Australians are heavily overweight in housing (4.5 times GDP) compared to other English-speaking nations. The same can be said about Australians’ mortgage debts, which are among the highest in the world when measured against incomes or GDP. The following chart from Justin
In this week’s podcast, Nucleus Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer, Damien Klassen, unpacked a range of easy-to-implement strategies—including salary sacrifice, after-tax contributions, spouse splits, recontribution tactics, and smart timing before 30 June—to help listeners retain more of their earnings while boosting their retirement savings. View the presentation slides Can’t make it to the live series? Catch up
Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, published the following chart showing the structural decline in private demand over the past decade, offset by the surge in public demand. Joiner’s chart paints a picture of a ‘lost decade’ for the private sector economy. Indeed, population growth averaged 1.5% over the past decade, implying per capita
The Market Ear on the stocks stall. Boring for longer? VIX seasonality has been a bit delayed this year, but it looks like things will be boring for some longer… Source: Vixcentral Put hate is back The crowd tends to love puts at local market lows, and hate puts at local market highs. Source: Tradingview
Australian taxpayers heavily subsidise electric vehicles (EVs). First, the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemption for battery EVs and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) is estimated to cost the federal budget more than $550 million in lost tax revenue annually. However, the FBT exemptions for PHEVs expired on April 1, 2025, implying a future reduction in budget costs.
DXY rebounded. AUD went into hard reverse. Leda boots are OK. Oil and old muted. Metals no bueno for growth. Miners meh. EM meh. Junk better. Yields eased. Stocks out of uff. On a day when the US and China agree to trade talks and China launches another round of yawnulus, a falling AUD is
A 2022 survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace showed that Indian migrants overwhelmingly vote for Labor over the Coalition. In the 2022 federal election, Indian migrants voted 58:34 in favour of Labor over the Coalition. Chinese-Australians also seem to prefer Labor. The Tally Room found that at the 2022 federal election, almost all
Building a renewable electricity system is incredibly expensive and will inevitably increase power bills. The global empirical evidence is clear: the higher the share of renewables in an energy system, the higher the electricity cost: The reasons are straightforward. Renewables depend on the weather, so they are intermittent and have low load factors. They need
Real estate agents noted that there has been a marked increase in the number of homes listed for sale in the last week alongside buyer queries. BresicWhitney CEO Thomas McGlynn expects this momentum to continue in the coming weeks after Labor secured a majority government at the federal election on Saturday. “If we see rates
This century has seen a remarkable transformation of Australia. In the 60 years post-World War II, Australia’s net overseas migration averaged 90,000 per year. Australia had only recorded two calendar years with net overseas migration (NOM) exceeding 150,000. Immigration booster Professor Peter McDonald admitted in 1999 that “there were difficulties in the late 1980s when
