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
Just when you thought the Albanese government’s gaslighting over the housing crisis couldn’t get any lower, Anika Wells, the Minister for Communications and Minister for Sport, published the following videos on social media equating the housing crisis to the supply of Ooshies: Wells remarks that “the ushy market and the Australian housing market are dictated
This is a beauty of a union claim at Sydney University. The union is demanding “provisions to protect staff against any adverse effects of artificial intelligence systems in the workplace,” as well as a 20 per cent pay rise for all staff, and 17 per cent superannuation for casual workers, in a log of claims
I argued last week that Australia’s globally high inflation is homegrown, as illustrated by services inflation tracking at 4.1% in the year to July, well above the broader trimmed mean inflation rate of 3.6%. Housing inflation is posing a particular problem for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). It comprises nearly one quarter of the
I noted yesterday that Chinese steel output is going bust. This has failed to put a dent in inventories. What it is doing, nonetheless, is rocketing the steel price. This does not make much sense. For instance, rebar has enormous idle capacity. Radiant is still in its death throes. Radiant World’s head of China iron
Luke Kinsella at The AFR has written a fantastic report on the rising number of federal public servants under the Albanese government. Australia’s federal public service has grown dramatically under the Albanese government—up 23% or around 36,700 staff since 2022. The APS is expanding by 28 new staff per day, reaching 195,847 employees by December
It has been the miracle on the harbour for far too long. It has been nearly twenty years since the GFC, which reset major global city prices, and Sydney has only gone up. No longer. House prices in Australia’s biggest property market are plummeting at a rate on track to deliver the largest annual decline
Today’s war headlines: US bombs two mine-laying rocket launchers on Larak Island, which could, and may have, landed mines in the Gulf of Oman. Iran bombs Jordan in response. US President Donald Trump says “we’re going to hit them hard,” which sounds like TACO to me. In short, the US made a tiny strike, and
As the debate over the impact of the changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount on existing residential property continues, claims keep spreading that the Albanese government’s budget marked a tipping point for rising rents. This claim is made daily on social media, with these narratives frequently permeating the mainstream as quotes
The claim that property rents would spike in response to the federal budget’s changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax has aged like milk, with new data from Cotality instead showing that rental growth is moderating amid rising vacancy rates. National rents grew by 5.7% in August, according to Cotality, down from 5.9% over
Changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax in the federal budget have driven a sharp decline in investor credit growth. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) credit aggregates data for July, illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, shows that investor housing credit growth slowed sharply to 0.46%, down from the recent peak
Australia has long had a problem with what to do with former prime ministers, but it appears Scotty from Marketing takes the cake. Former prime minister Scott Morrison says Labor’s plans for a domestic gas reservation scheme pose a threat to the country’s long-standing and close energy supply partnership with Japan. Morrison, who is vice
I reported last week on The Age newspaper’s interactive tool showing what Melbourne will look like when its population soars beyond 10 million. The modelling suggests that six activity centres will be denser than anything that exists in Melbourne today: The number of dwellings across the top 15 centres is projected to massively increase under each
Bloomberg describes Trump’s emerging strategy for wrecking the midterms. The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a temporary win this week by lifting a ruling that was holding back his plan to restrict voting by mail. But the decision was narrow: The court ruled only that the states challenging the push sued too soon,
The business lobby, policymakers, and the federal government have long argued that Australia needs to run a mass immigration program to overcome future skills shortages. The argument generally goes something like this: Australia’s population is ageing fast, and with the large baby boomer cohort heading into retirement, Australia faces an acute shortage of workers. Australia
The ferrous complex is trading like Chinese stimulus is flowing like the good old days. But it’s not, even if it’s trying. It’s still crushed by realty with no end in sight. Turning to steel, demand is down a meaty 5.6% yoy. While production has all but collapsed. Yet inventories are not coming down. And
The war headlines. Iran declares it will stand against US sanctions and rely equally on defence and diplomacy. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran (IRGC) asserts that it has complete control over the Strait of Hormuz . Al Jazeera was informed by the White House that the US naval blockade is still in full
Shortly prior to the recent by-election which took place in the Western Australian state parliament seat of Secret Harbour, Labor were the heavy favourites to retain what was a safe seat held on a two-party preferred margin of 11.5%. On the 25th of August, 4 days prior to the by-election, odds makers had Labor at
Australia’s house price correction steepened in August. According to Cotality’s daily dwelling values index, which tracks value changes across Australia’s five major capital city markets, home prices declined by a hefty 1.2% at the 5-city aggregate level in August. As illustrated in the chart above, declines were broad-based, with significant losses reported across the five
Last week’s economic data shook Australia’s interest rate markets. To recap, the policy-relevant trimmed mean inflation printed at 3.6% in the year to July, above forecasts of 3.5%. The monthly and quarterly pace of trimmed mean inflation also accelerated. Australia’s inflation is also primarily domestically driven, with market services inflation rising by 4.1% in the year
Australia’s auction market has taken another turn for the worse, with the national preliminary auction clearance rate falling again to only 52.4%, down from 56.5% the previous weekend (revised lower to 48.9% on final numbers): At the same time last year, 70.0% of auctions reported a successful result. Auction numbers also remain well below last
For me, the most interesting investment question involving SpaceX isn’t whether it is worth the enormous valuation. It’s whether Elon Musk can build AI data centres quickly enough to change the supply-demand balance of the entire industry. That distinction matters. SpaceX’s valuation is one question. Its potential to disrupt the data-centre market is another. Even
This week’s must-watch video: The Events That Caused World War II Are Now In Motion Again (nobody believed it then either) International reading: Tanking economy spurs stunning conclusion from analyst: Trump’s doing it ‘deliberately’ – Raw Story Economists Who Weren’t Worried About the Debt Are Now Panicking – The Atlantic Gen Z spending more on
As the falls in Australian housing prices continue to grow in size and scope, many Australians are increasingly wondering how far prices could fall before they eventually bounce back. Across the Tasman in New Zealand, we have a real-life example of what happens when an overvalued housing market takes a dive without policymakers riding to
This week’s stronger-than-expected CPI inflation print from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has economists tipping near-term interest rate hikes. To recap, the policy-relevant trimmed mean inflation printed at 3.6% year-over-year, above forecasts of 3.5%: The monthly and quarterly pace of trimmed mean inflation has also accelerated: Australia now has one of the strongest-growing trimmed
It’s farewell to a radiant world, reports Bloomie. Singaporean police raided the local office of iron ore trader Radiant World last week and questioned some of the company’s employees as part of an investigation into the business’s transactions after counterparties raised allegations of falsified documents. A number of significant commodity dealers have severed their connections
