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
By Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA: Key Points: Real consumer spending contracted in Q2 24 to be just 0.5% higher through the year (comfortably below the RBA’s forecast of 1.1%/yr). Real consumer spending per capita has fallen over the past eighteen months, primarily driven by a decline in discretionary spending. Private surveys
The big one tonight is US inflation. Citi takes a look. Inflation data are quickly taking a backseat to labor market data in terms of relevance for Fed policy decisions, but with an inconclusive August employment report, August CPI data could be impactful for the probability of a 25bp or 50bp rate cut on September
Labor is all about cronies all of the time: Mining giant BHP has entered the political war between the resources sector and the Albanese government, defending its role in the Australian economy and claiming the amount of tax it paid last financial year was equal to half the entire annual funding of the public hospital
It appears the Kamala Harris polling honeymoon is over: It is across the board: Betting markets have Trump ahead again: Swing states are too close to call: All a bit odd given what is happening to oil. In my view, the debate is all Harris’s to lose. Everybody knows Trump. She needs to nail it
The hostility the Grattan Institute has shown VIC on energy policy bespeaks a deep hatred of the state. First, back in 2013, Grattan recommended that QLD be allowed to export all of its gas without domestic reservation. This was always going to be worst for VIC, given it is cold and needs heating, and we
The latest NAB business survey, released on Tuesday, revealed that Australia’s labour market has continued to soften. As illustrated in the following charts from Justin Fabo at Antipodean Macro, reported hiring by Australian businesses declined in August to be around average: The trend rise in capacity utilisation also points to an ongoing rise in the
I have warned repeatedly that the Grattan Institute’s immigration “research” and work program is funded by the pro-Big Australia Scanlon Foundation, which was founded by real estate entrepreneur and rich lister Peter Scanlon: As John Masanauskas from the Herald-Sun explained in 2009 (link no longer active): MAJOR investor and former Elders executive Peter Scanlon hardly
The RBA really should give up trying to predict the future. It doesn’t have the brain power for it. After weeks of the central bank telling us on every occasion it will not cut rates this year, along comes an oil crash: For Australia, this has the bonus of pressuring the gas cartel at the
In a turn up for the books, steel rose yesterday while iron ore fell: Mad Dalian is at new closing lows this morning: As is coking coal: The trigger may have been Chinese trade data which had soft iron ore imports on the month (and still rising inventories): And a rebound in steel exports: Crashing
I noted on Monday how first home buyers were being crowded-out by investors and upgraders: The relative weakness of first home buyer demand is attributable to stretched affordability, reflected in the average loan size for first home buyers being well below upgraders and investors: Housing Minister Clare O’Neil posted on Twitter (X) that one in
An unsettled risk complex overnight in the absence of economic events but looking through to tonight’s all-important US CPI print and probably just as volatile Presidential debate. Oil prices slumped to a three year low while Wall Street pressed forward with its rebound, albeit only led by tech stocks. European markets failed to follow through
Independent economist Tarric Brooker posted the below analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Q2 2024 Labour Market Account, showing the extent to which the nation’s job growth is being driven by government roles: “Government-funded industry jobs are still being printed in huge numbers (268,000 YoY). There have only been 33,000 new market based
DXY is firm again: AUD is not: North Asia was mixed: Oil broke at last: Metals will follow if it continues: Miners are a slow-motion train wreck: EM is over: Junk is still fine: The US yield trapdoor opened: Which helped save stocks: Lots of cross-currents here: Trump polling rallying into tonight’s debate is DXY
Australian policymakers, think tanks, the media, and the property lobby want to force Australians to live in high-rise apartments to squeeze an additional 13.5 million people into the country over the next 39 years. For example, projections from the Urban Taskforce have Sydney’s dwelling composition transforming from a majority of detached houses in 2016 to
The Guardian reported last month on the widespread cheating at our universities, which was primarily due to the surge in international students: On Monday, Australia’s most international university, the University of Sydney, was embroiled in another cheating scandal involving hundreds of students: Hundreds of Sydney University students were accused of cheating before teachers received a
A quiet but generally positive day for Asian share markets which haven’t translated the overnight bounce from Wall Street into anything exciting locally with all eyes on tomorrow night’s US CPI print. European stock futures are in fact down heading into the London open so risk remains quiet uneasy. Currency markets are still seeing a
The July monthly inflation indicator from the ABS showed that the disinflationary impulse had broadened. The number of items in the CPI basket with annual inflation below 2% rose above the number of items with prices growing faster than the RBA’s inflation target of 3%: Last week, the Melbourne Institute inflation gauge recorded a sharp
Michael West is among the few commentators willing to call out the billions of dollars of laundered money ploughed into Australia’s property market, contributing to the current affordability crisis: As mainstream media, particularly Nine, is funded by property ads, we don’t see many stories about money laundering. But money-laundering – often wealthy foreign buyers parking
The local gas price has managed to ease slightly below Albo’s catastrophic $12Gj price floor: Only in war have we never seen spring average power prices like this: Meanwhile, the national discussion is consumed by irrelevance: Victorian households can continue cooking with gas after the Allan government moved to exclude gas stovetops from its net
After ten years of the worst central banking in the world, unable to forecast what time the sun was coming up, we will get bugger all reform: The Coalition will block Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ attempt to create a new specialist interest rate-setting board at the Reserve Bank over concerns the government could stack the committee
Why the mainstream needs to lie to itself about everything is some PhD investigation into the human condition that I do not have time for. In the case of China, the perpetual delusion is that it is exiting deflation. It is not. Yesterday’s CPI was weak despite a rebound to 0.6% year on year: But
Politicians, economists, the media, and think tanks in Australia continue to argue that a supply shortage has caused the housing crisis. They argue that the situation would be resolved if Australia built more homes. One of the ways put forward to build more homes is to import more migrant labour into the construction sector: The following
Behold the Chicken Chalmers economy via Westpac. The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index dipped 0.5% to 84.6 in September from 85.0 in August. The pessimism that has dominated for over two years now is still showing no real signs of lifting. However, the focus does look to be shifting. While cost-of-living pressures are becoming a
The Market Ear with the lastest. Choppy After the August gyrations, equity positioning is chopping modestly above average. DB Discretionary and systematic positioning Discretionary positioning – back in the range which prevailed in the first half of this year. Systematic positioning – fallen steeply and is only slightly above neutral. DB Positioning not a problem
Australian Industry Group (AiG) CEO Innes Willox has broken rank from the other business lobbies and rejected the notion that international students are the key to Australia’s future. AiG has come out in support of the federal government’s cap on international students. Willox argues that the focus of universities should be on educating Australians and
