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
Public submissions to the Governments Productivity Roundtable closed yesterday. All that is left for the public to consider are the outcomes. Ultimately the Productivity Round Table is unlikely to achieve all that much because it isn’t set up to achieve anything, and is set up to provide a spectacle in lieu of effective policy. Therein lay
Australian home values reached a new record high in June and are expected to continue growing. The single-best leading indicator of price growth—auction clearance rates—has bounced, suggesting buyer demand is increasing. As illustrated below, final auction clearance rates are tracking at their highest levels in more than a year across Sydney, Melbourne, and the combined
Ah, The Guardian, home of hypocrisy. Mark Humphries has moved house five times in the past seven years. First was the place in the Sydney suburb of Turramurra he had to vacate because it was, “forgive me for saying this – leaking like a giant breast from the ceiling”. Next came a house so damp,
DXY is trying again. The AUD uptrend is intact. Lead boots got heavier. Gold needs more Trump. Metals flamed out. EM too. Junk is bullish. Yields faded. Stocks ATH. The big bear short on CFTC driving price gains reached -81k contracts, which is approaching very bearish terrain. AUD had a down day, but so long
International Reading: This company’s CEO made 6,666x more than its typical worker – CNN Gen Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-grads—a sign that the higher education payoff is dead – Fortune The American Dream is no longer red, white, and blue—it’s gray. There are now more homebuyers over
Asian share markets are snapping back after rallying most of the week with the USD pushing higher after making gains against most of the undollars overnight as the Trump regime indicates it probably won’t fire Fed Chair Powell. Maybe. Japanese inflation numbers were as expected but still too high above the BOJ target sending Yen
Last month, I visited Harvey Norman in search of a replacement for my decade-old coffee machine. The sales assistant told me that sales of home coffee machines were booming, presumably because cost-of-living concerns had made barista-made coffee from a cafe unaffordable. I have also observed growing lines at the local Coles Express, where I regularly
One just has to love and laugh at the Aussie political economy. AFR. Productivity Commission chairwoman Danielle Wood is recommending the Albanese government overhaul company tax, speed up planning approvals for infrastructure projects and embrace artificial intelligence to lift the economy out of stagnation. Australian full-time workers would be at least $14,000 better off by
Earlier this week, I argued that Trump Derangement Syndrome is no basis for sustained Labor rule. Alas, I spoke too soon, because the Coalition, bent of self-destruction, has delivered said basis Via Wokey. An anonymous federal Liberal MP who opposed Sussan Ley as party leader when she stood for the role in May told The
I reported this week how the co-founder and life member of the Australian Greens, Drew Hutton, has been expelled from the party for a series of Facebook posts and comments he made about the Greens’ pro-transgender platform. Hutton responded claiming that “there have been over 40 members of the Greens Australia-wide who have contacted me,
How can the central bank of the only enduring immigration-led, labour market expansion economic model on earth never mention immigration? It is a trick question, of course. The model is only possible because the mention of the word immigration is cancelled, thus enabling the ongoing slaughter of living standards for extant Australians. Imagine if they
ANZ is excited. China: reflation kicks off China kicks off a reflation strategy, signalled by a mega hydropower project. The goal is to restore the inflation dynamics via supply-side tightening and creating new demand side. Producer price index (PPI) could turn positive soon due to rising commodity prices. But it will still takeat least two
Last year, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) became involved in its own corruption crisis. When the Royal Commission on the Robodebt Scheme released its report, the commissioner recommended that six people be submitted to the NACC for investigation. Many Robodebt victims were outraged when the NACC announced that it would not execute the recommendation. The
In the Albanese government’s first term in office, a strategy that could be broadly summed up as “Steady as she goes” or “Small target government” was pursued. While such an approach left the government with a minimal book of policy accomplishments, it also provided the Coalition few easy opportunities to gain momentum and present themselves
Neither policymakers nor proponents of a Big Australia accept the importance of water in the immigration debate. A succession of papers has warned that Australia will experience chronic water shortages and escalating water bills as its population rises by millions, driven by chronically high immigration levels. For example, Infrastructure Australia’s 2017 modelling forecast that real household
The ferrous complex short squeeze is flaming out. Arch CCP groveller Twiggy Forrest was on the hustings yesterday. The Australian. The next chapter in the Australia-China relationship will define our shared futures for the next century. It was significant that one of the defining moments of the Prime Minister’s visit was one I had not experienced on
Risk markets were relatively benign overnight as the ECB meeting came and went without any movement in interest rates as expected while the latest US initial jobless claims didn’t surprise either with the USD putting in a very small rally after a week or more of weakness. Pound Sterling fell back the sharpest among the
The human face of Australia’s rental crisis was revealed this year when father of three Morgan Cox bravely fronted ABC’s Q&A seeking answers to Australia’s rental crisis. Morgan Cox is a typical hardworking Australian living on the NSW Central Coast. He works two jobs to help support his partner and three children, one of whom
In December 2024, a joint report from UNSW and Homelessness Australia claimed that 10,000 extra Australians were becoming homeless each month. “Since 2020, rents have risen at rates unseen since 2008. During the period March 2020 to June 2024, the median advertised weekly rent for all property types across all cities and regions rose from
Asian share markets like other equities are doing the FOMO trade as it looks apparent that everyone is going to get a new baseline 10-15% tariff rate from the Trump regime with news that the EU is likely to be next, enshrining higher prices for US consumers for almost everything they buy. Wall Street doesn’t
The federal government’s proposal to tax the unrealised capital gains of superannuation funds was a key focus of the first question time session in the new parliament. Treasurer Jim Chalmers criticised the Coalition for attacking a policy that he claims would affect about 0.5% of people with a superannuation account, noting that it had opposed
A new FY brings new hope. S&P with the note. Flash Australia Composite PMI Output Index: 53.6 Index, sa, >50 = growth m/m % qr/qr (Jun: 51.6) Flash Australia Services PMI Business Activity Index: 53.8 (Jun: 51.8) Flash Australia Manufacturing PMI: 51.6 (Jun: 50.6) Flash Australia Manufacturing PMI Output Index: 52.3 (Jun: 49.9) “July’s S&P
Last week, Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) released data showing that employers are having a far easier time finding workers to fill roles. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the overall share of employees finding it difficult to find workers has almost returned to pre-pandemic levels. While higher-skilled workers remain harder to find,
Thank god for the liar from the Shire. AFR. Two US congressmen leading a committee looking at Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific have thrown their support behind the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact, just a day before a hearing in which former prime minister Scott Morrison will testify. “AUKUS has received strong bipartisan support from Congress
In this week’s podcast, Nucleus Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer Damien Klassen explored where income investors should look as Australian interest rates appear set to fall. View the presentation slides Can’t make it to the live series? Catch up on the content via Podcasts or our recorded Videos. Damien Klassen is Chief Investment Officer at the Macrobusiness Fund, which is
