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
Below is CBA economist Lucinda Jerogin’s round-up of this week’s economic and housing data: Key points: The RBA hiked the cash rate 25bps on Tuesday to 4.60%, its highest level in 15 years. The decision was unanimous. We expect for the RBA to be on hold from here, but risks are heavily skewed to another
International Reading: Most Americans blame Trump for high prices as his economic approval hits new low, AP-NORC poll shows – AP News RFK Jr Announcing That AI Is Now Better Than Human Doctors – Futurism The Fed Is Caught Between Inflation, $40 Trillion in Debt and Global Risk – Real Narratives Credit card delinquency in
The 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy, released in July, revealed that: Oil consumption hit a record high. Natural gas consumption hit a record high. Coal consumption hit a record high. Fossil fuels accounted for 86% of total energy supplied. Carbon emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels hit a record high. Last week, the
Aussie bonds are attracting wider interest. Australia’s benchmark bond yield looks poised to fall below its US counterpart for the first time in over a year, as expectations for monetary policy in the two economies diverge. With bets growing that the Reserve Bank of Australia is nearing the end of its tightening cycle while the
Roy Morgan’s latest mortgage stress survey shows that 32.3% of mortgage households were at risk of mortgage stress in August, with 22.7% extremely at risk: Mortgage stress was tracking at its highest levels since the peak of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in mid-2008, when the official cash rate hit 7%. The Reserve Bank of
Something is starting to break. And it is Europe. TME has more. The puke SX5E has printed two aggressive bearish candles in a row and is now testing the make-or-break 6200 area in futures. The long-term trend line comes in around here as well, while the index is breaking below the 100-day moving average today.
Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock recently suggested that the unemployment rate may need to rise to 5%, up from 4.6% currently, to ease inflation pressures in Australia. Bullock said that a higher unemployment rate could ease the strain on the economy’s capacity to produce goods and services, which is currently tight because of high demand
DXY gapped into the stratosphere overnight. It is goodbye, EUR. AUD kept falling and is approaching critical .69 cents support. Brent roared. Gold held on. Metals are letting go. Another major growth warning. Big miners are in trouble. EM stocks even more so. As junk gapped into madness. The long-end yield backup has slowed for
War headlines today. Iran bombs VLCC in Hormuz. On fire. Houthis rain hell on Saudi Arabia. Third US carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt, headed for Iran. Netanyahu/Trump blame Iran for hijack. There has been a slight easing in US fuel prices but we are still at noeblees levels with crazy cracks. Australia is about to enjoy
As commentators and banks alike continue to revise housing price forecasts down, Australians are increasingly wondering how much further prices could fall. With the release of the latest revised housing price data from Cotality, it can now be confirmed that housing prices are falling significantly faster than initially believed, particularly in the locales worst impacted
The latest dwelling completions data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that only 173,400 homes were built in the year to March 2026, 66,600 (28%) fewer than the 240,000 annual run rate required to meet the National Housing Accord’s target of building 1.2 million homes over five years. Over the first 21 months
The private credit market, which has grown to around $200 billion in assets, has become a key lender to developers as traditional banks pull back from construction lending due to tightening risk appetites. However, the recent collapse of property developer Bathla Group has thrown the sector into disarray. Bathla Group entered voluntary administration in late
In this week’s podcast, we’re exploring how direct indexing can give investors more control over their portfolios — allowing you to choose the companies you own, manage your exposure to different themes, and tailor your investments around your own goals and preferences. We unpack what makes direct indexing different from traditional funds and how greater
The legend that is Andrew Boak at Goldman today deconstructs the screech of Bullockhawk. The 2023 Review of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) placed a renewed emphasis on improving how the Bank communicates its policy strategy and decisions. In this note, we employ several natural language processing (NLP) methodologies – specifically dictionary-based parsing, an
Cotality’s September housing market results are out: the nation’s rental market saw a solid rise in the vacancy rate to 2%, up from the record low of 1.5% recorded in February 2026 and the highest level since January 2025. The monthly pace of rental growth eased to 0.3% in seasonally adjusted terms, the smallest monthly
Here’s the animation of the fattening lava tongue poking from South America. The key BOM index is still getting worse. In historical context. Effects are starting to appear. India’s monsoon just collapsed. A powerful El Niño has left India with its weakest monsoon in more than a decade, threatening crops and raising food-price risks. Rainfall during
Changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax in the federal budget have sharply reduced investor credit growth. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) credit aggregates data for August, illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, show that investor housing credit growth decelerated sharply to 0.32%, down from the recent peak of 0.95% in
DXY is perched at the breakout line. EUR is through the breakdown line. AUD is in free fall; North Asia is some kind of parachute. Oil and gold look like a disinflation pair. Metals are a little toppy. Miners are trying to bottom. EM stocks don’t DXY. Junk is apoplectic. Or the global long end,
War headlines today. Three attacks on Hormuz ships overnight. Houthis rain missiles on Saudi oil facilities. Deal talks continue. The overnight price of Brent futures was steady at $98. Diesel cracks jumped 4% after weak US inventory data, which is quickly dragging petrol down as well. Oil markets are sending mixed signals. Goldman has gone
In the latest Intergenerational Report from the Albanese government, a series of assumptions are, to put it politely, “overly optimistic”. Chief among them is the baseline forecast that Australia’s productivity growth will average 1.2% per year, slightly below the 20-year average before 2020. Looking at the chart above, the assumption of productivity growing at 1.2%
Just when you thought that Australia’s housing correction couldn’t get worse, Cotality has revised its dwelling values index downward, meaning that values have fallen more sharply than expected. Let me explain. Cotality’s daily dwelling values index, which tracks home values across the five major capital city markets, has recorded a 3.8% quarterly decline at the
In a classic scheduling error, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the August quarter consumer price inflation (CPI) report a day after the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raised the official cash rate by 0.25%. Tuesday’s media release from the RBA accompanying its 0.25% rate hike noted that “inflation remains elevated and some of
Australia ranks near the top in the world for household wealth. According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2026, Australia had the third-highest median household wealth in the world, after Luxembourg and Belgium. However, real estate makes up the majority of Australia’s household wealth, unlike most countries: Australian housing values have increased relentlessly over the
Remember the days when this mattered? China unveiled mortgage subsidies and changes to bank lending policies, stepping up efforts to support an economy losing momentum. The country will subsidize interest payments for homebuyers on some cheaper homes nationwide. First-home buyers will get subsidies worth an annualized rate of 1 percentage point of the mortgage principal
TME with the great mystery. Refusing to break Rates keep screaming, but stocks keep refusing to break. Semis have been hit hard, yet earnings and AI capex remain firmly intact. The broader equity market is showing similar resilience, with earnings doing much more of the heavy lifting than price alone suggests. Meanwhile, the rates shock
