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
CBA’s economics team has produced some excellent charts, derived from customer bank account data, showing how the rise in energy costs is consuming a larger share of household budgets. The prices of petrol and diesel have risen sharply since the outbreak of the Middle East conflict. However, retail petrol prices fell slightly to 240 cents
International Reading: Eligible US men will be automatically registered for military draft pool beginning in December – Daily Mail Iran again shuts Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Lebanon – JPost Newly created Polymarket accounts bet big on US-Iran ceasefire in hours before Trump’s announcement – AP News Trump’s labor plan is
TME with the charts. Crash erased, squeeze done The market has erased the entire selloff and completed a full roundtrip. Positioning has been reset, volatility has collapsed, and systematic flows are turning into support. The problem is, with price back in the middle of the range, edge is already fading. The roundtrip SPX has now
Sydney’s and Melbourne’s home prices continue to shift into “correction” territory, with values declining by 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively, over the past 28 days, according to Cotality’s daily dwelling values index. In contrast, values in Perth (2.1%), Brisbane (1.4%), and Adelaide (1.0%) continue to increase at a strong pace. The sharp contrast in price performance
JPM today tallies the damage to hydrocarbon output in the Gulf. Around 60 energy infrastructure assets in the Gulf have been impacted by drone and missile strikes in the nearly six weeks since the conflict started, with about 50 of them suffering varying degrees of damage (Figure 1 & 2). JPM anticipates that the majority
There is growing concern that Australia’s tax and transfer system disproportionately benefits older, wealthier retirees while placing a rising burden on younger workers—a tension now central to Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ pre‑budget messaging. A retired bank economist, Jeff Oughton, expressed disbelief that young Australians aren’t “marching in the streets”, arguing that wealthy retirees like him pay
Developers and builders across Australia warn that the conflict in the Middle East has triggered a fresh supply chain shock, pushing up the cost of key construction materials and fuel and threatening the viability of new housing projects. Many say the situation now resembles the pandemic‑era disruption and are calling for governments to reintroduce Covid‑style
Some leaks about One Nation policy today make for good reading. The leak suggests ON should support a unique investment vehicle that would acquire equity from production and use that money for long-term financial gains. Further, “abolishing the current petroleum resource rent tax and replacing it with a royalty levied on the wellhead value of
HSBC states the obvious in a new geopolitical paper. Reducing global tensions should lower demand for the US dollar as a safe-haven asset in foreign exchange markets. Higher-risk and undervalued currencies would benefit from this, especially in emerging markets (EM) and energy-importing nations in Europe and Asia that were most impacted by rising energy prices.
As the crisis in the Middle East continues and the volume of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains a relative trickle, a tangled web of commerce and diplomacy continues to deliver oil from the Persian Gulf to customers throughout the world, overwhelmingly in Asia. For some, such as India, deals have been made with
Whether we like it or not, hydrocarbons power the Australian economy. The Australian Energy Update 2025, produced by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, shows that hydrocarbons in the form of oil (41%), coal (25%), and gas (25%) accounted for 91% of Australia’s primary energy use in 2024. Despite all the
Given the amount of risk abroad, DXY has done bugger all, really. AUD is back, with CNY flying. Oil crashed, and gold is bid again. Base metals are strong. Big mining price action is crazy. EM hasn’t lost the plot. Junk minimal harm. The curve is flattening significantly for Treasuries. Stocks dumped and pumped. My
 In this week’s podcast, we’re looking at what a U.S.–Iran ceasefire really means for markets — even if tensions remain unresolved. We explore how a fragile pause in the conflict could affect oil prices, inflation expectations, safe-haven flows, and the broader investment outlook, and whether investors should prepare for relief, renewed volatility, or something in
The Australian’s Judith Sloan has written a compelling article calling on Australia to remove barriers to fossil fuel development. The article argues that Australia has spent nearly two decades waging an aggressive, bipartisan “war” against fossil fuels, driven by the belief that the net‑zero transition is an economic opportunity. Sloan contends this assumption is false,
TME explores the short squeeze. Tricky from here The squeeze played out fast. Positioning got caught, flows flipped, and price ripped higher on the back of forced buying and volatility dynamics. What looked fragile just days ago is now back to looking supported. But that’s exactly the problem. The easy part of the move is
University students have pushed back against moves to require them to attend in person to combat AI cheating, citing high transport costs. National Union of Students President Felix Hughes says students are “skipping meals” and “burning out” just to stay enrolled. He claims that some students are being forced to choose between getting to class
The East Coast gas export cartel is doing a grand job of demonstrating its power over local prices, keeping it at $10Gj. With some aid from the weather and a weakening economy. It is easily defying Asian gas prices, which are at triple the price. As a direct result, Australian wholesale power prices have remained
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data on dwelling commencements and completions for the fourth quarter of 2025, which confirmed that the National Housing Accord’s target of building 1.2 million homes over five years has drifted further out of reach. The number of homes that commenced construction increased to 53,567 in the fourth quarter
It’s no surprise that Australia is most exposed in the OECD thanks to Albo’s toxic combination of high household debt, fuel import dependence and low fuel inventories. Now, this suicidally vulnerable policy setup is playing out in real-time. The global PMI for March is out and, as one would expect, consumers are leading the way
The Gulf ceasefire is a joke on somebody, but who exactly it is unclear. Iran has claimed victory in the war thanks to “[Trump] said he had received a 10-point proposal from Iran which was a “workable basis on which to negotiate”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ten points are clearly unworkable for
On Tuesday night (Australian time), U.S. President Donald Trump produced his most aggressive social media post on record, promising to end Iranian civilisation. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”, Trump said. Less than 24 hours later, Trump had changed his tune completely. He took to his social media platform
Australia’s rental crisis continues in earnest. Following March’s 0.7% in national median advertised rents, rents in Australia have risen by an extraordinary 48% since December 2019, adding more than $11,700 to the annual cost of renting the median home: The rental vacancy rate has also fallen to a historical low, at half its level in
If one chart were to summarise the Victorian government’s transformation from fiscal conservatism to sabotage, it is the following, showing the explosion in the state’s net debt: When Daniel Andrews’ Labor government took office in late 2014, Victoria carried a net debt of around $21 billion. As of 2025, Victoria’s net debt had exploded to
The Chinese property market had a better week after a terrible start to the year. The downturn has been running for nearly five years. In any market economy, we would be a long way through processing into just any glut of property, but the bad loans hobble the banking system. But not in China. Measures
Australia’s level of dwelling construction is tracking well below the National Housing Accord’s target of building 1.2 million homes over five years. The most recent dwelling completions data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that only 219,000 homes were built over the first 15 months of the national housing accord (i.e., to the
