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
Last week’s federal budget announced fundamental changes to Australia’s negative gearing and capital gains tax regimes, summarised below. Negative Gearing: From 1 July 2027, negative gearing will only apply to newly built residential properties. Existing properties purchased before 12 May 2026 are fully grandfathered — no change to current rules. Policy intent: push investor demand
Sydney’s housing market has clearly entered a correction phase, with values falling since February, according to Cotality. This weekend’s auction results from Cotality confirmed that the correction is deepening, with Sydney’s preliminary auction clearance rate crashing by 6.0% to only 49.2%, “the worst outcome since auction results were heavily disrupted during early COVID in April
International Reading: Burned out and going nowhere: the American worker is too mentally drained to even look for a new job – Fortune Banks swipe 42,000 homes from struggling Americans in just one month as housing crisis deepens – Daily Mail U.S. Foreclosure Filings Spike 18%: Delaware, South Carolina, and Florida Top the List –
By Ross Elliott from The Pulse: Proponents of Prime Minister Albanese’s proposed $90 billion “very fast train” between Sydney and Newcastle must either be extraordinarily optimistic or extraordinarily well paid to promote it. It is hard to believe that anyone could honestly support such a proposal without financial incentive. Too harsh? Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of
This week’s federal budget has landed like a lead balloon with voters, with Roy Morgan polling taken immediately after the budget showing One Nation jumping to 32% of the primary vote, its highest ever result. By contrast, Labor’s primary vote dropped to 28.5%, one of its weakest results since the election, while the Coalition is
The MSM is living in the past, as usual. Who is Taylor? Roy Morgan knows who the official opposition now is. As LVO noted. Straight after the Federal Budget One Nation had more primary support (32%) than ALP 28.5%, and almost double support for the L-NP Coalition 16.5%, the Greens 11.5%, and Independents/ Other Parties
Victoria’s public sector workforce has grown by more than 100,000 personnel since the Andrews/Allan Labor Government took power in 2014, representing an increase of around 50%. This is one of the largest public-sector expansions in modern Australian history. According to the Victorian Public Sector Commission’s (VPSC) yearly workforce statistics, there were around 260,000 employees in
TME with the charts. The Melt-Up Keeps Sucking People In The upside chase keeps pulling investors aggressively into AI, semis, momentum, and upside volatility. At the same time, breadth keeps deteriorating, downside protection is getting abandoned, and several positioning dynamics are quietly building dangerous downside convexity if markets suddenly reverse lower. The melt-up keeps getting
China is by far the world’s largest carbon emitter, which has been driven by its insatiable appetite for coal: China has a significant number of new coal mines in development: More than 50 large coal units—individual boiler and turbine sets with generating capacity of 1 gigawatt or more—were commissioned in China in 2025, up from
The ferrous jaws are as wide as ever. The latest CISA output numbers remain -6% year on year. Steel inventory bounced back. Por inventories are beginning to flatten out. Growth next. Simandou is pumping now. It only has four working locomotives, with an expected peak of 150, so this is working the system pretty hard.
Oil is not worse today as Trump begs and Xi pretends to care. The outlook is not so rosy. Goldman has the bad news for our American friends. The US gasoline market has become very tight, with inventories drawing at an rapid average pace of 0.7mb/d since April 1st to 5% below their historical seasonal
As the conflict in the Persian Gulf continues to simmer, periodically exploding into sporadic but limited skirmishes, the United States and Iran are attempting to hammer out an agreement to bring the war to a close. Both sides believe they have the advantage and that the passage of time will weaken their enemy’s resolve at
The Albanese government’s expanded 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers took effect on 1 October 2025. Over the first quarter of the scheme, mortgage demand from first home buyers spiked. A total of $19.310 billion was lent to first home buyers in the December quarter of 2025, an increase of 16% on the prior
TME with the charts. Upside Panic Everywhere The upside chase in tech is becoming increasingly extreme. China tech is now starting to squeeze aggressively higher just as investors continue piling into NDX upside optionality and leveraged semiconductor exposure. Spot-up, vol-up dynamics remain firmly in place, downside hedging has become unusually cheap, and positioning across tech
The budget papers show that the Treasury’s base case is that the inflation rate will ease to 2.5% in 2027, after peaking at a forecast 5% in mid-2026. This is based on expectations that the price of crude oil will fall. However, the Treasury’s worst-case scenario modelling suggests that inflation will rise above 7% if
They have a fair point, but they are not making it well. News.com.au can reveal the Liberal leader will seek to frame the housing affordability crisis squarely within the context of migration. He will argue the reason why prices are out of control is migration, not negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks. Promising to
Australia’s housing market is entering a bear market driven by Sydney and Melbourne. Price growth has stalled, and auction clearance rates have declined to multi-year lows. Sales volumes have also fallen below the five-year average: On Wednesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data on mortgage commitments, showing that the value of new housing
According to the most recent CommBank Household Spending Insights (HSI), household spending in Australia decreased in April as cautious spending in the entertainment category and unstable gas prices offset the increase in March. According to CommBank data, overall household spending decreased by 1.2% during the month, with a notable decline of 12.1% in transportation due
The AFR describes growing confusion and criticism surrounding the Albanese government’s proposed gas reservation scheme, which would require major LNG exporters to reserve 20 per cent of gas for the domestic Australian market from 2027. Initially, Bowen suggested the policy would apply only to uncontracted gas and spot cargoes. That interpretation would have largely exempted
Not much new overnight as POTUS heads to China. Dropsite sums up what there is. President Donald Trump: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” Iran deputy FM says U.S. rejected proposal “because it is not a letter of surrender.” Pakistan denies sheltering Iranian military aircraft as U.S.-Iran ceasefire teeters. Classified U.S. intelligence shows Iran
Tuesday’s federal budget was another missed opportunity to fix the most egregious aspect of the nation’s tax system: the heavy reliance on taxing workers via personal income taxes. The budget’s changes to negative gearing and capital gains taxes will raise billions in additional tax revenue over time. But without offsetting changes to personal income tax
In the years since the Hawke government drew negative gearing to a close in June 1985, a great deal of mythology about the era and the impact of its removal has propagated. Claims of a mass investor exodus driving rents up dramatically are relatively common in some quarters, despite being debunked by hard data and
Wednesday’s labour price index from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that wages nationally increased by 0.8% in March to be 3.3% higher year-on-year: Wage growth was higher in the public sector (3.30%) than the private sector (3.23%): As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the result was bang in line with
A migrant remittance is simply money that a migrant worker earns in one country and sends to people in their home country. Significant net migrant remittance outflows are an economic cost to the host country. They are a net leakage from national income, domestic demand, and the tax base. As a result, they weaken the
Here is the Budget outlook. Versus the RBA outlook. The differences are stark: Growth is 0.4% stronger in the Budget by mid 2027. Employment growth is 0.1% higher. Unemployment peaks at 4.5 in the Budget but keeps climbing for the RBA. CPI is 0.1% higher in Budget versus RBA mid-2027. Wage inflation is up to
