Planes of Perception, Erica McGilchrist, 1958, National Gallery of Victoria China China’s Secret Lists of Zombie Borrowers Leave Banks in the Dark – Bloomberg China falls back on fiscal stimulus to revive growth in ailing northeast rust belt – SCMP China’s Corporate-Debt Challenge – Project-Syndicate Beijing launches 200b yuan venture capital fund to foster SOE
Couple of cool charts from Domainfax: I’d call that pretty ordinary for a sporting nation.
Via Macquarie Bank: EVN reported strong underlying earnings for FY16, in line with our expectation. Strong underlying earnings. EVN reported strong underlying earnings with Ebitda of $607.5m and Ebit of $272.1m, within 3% of our forecasts. Underlying Npat of $226.8m was 7% lower than our expectation of $243m. After one-off transaction costs and
Dirt has broken out today with BHP and FMG at new rally highs up 2% apiece, RIO is the new laggard up 1% and still 5% below 2016 peaks. Dalian is flat at the open: It appears the mooted BHP re-rating is underway as it breaks to new post-crash highs and pushing out of its
More from Moody’s: Our outlook for the Australian banking system is negative. This outlook expresses our expectation of how bank creditworthiness will evolve in the system over the next 12-18 months. Australian banks will likely face a number of headwinds over the next 12 to 18 months, including slower profit growth and increasing sensitivity to
So much for that part time jobs surge, from Peter Martin: Full-time employment has slid 64,500 since December while part-time employment has surged 136,600. The net result of 72,300 extra Australians in work reflects a hollowing out of employment rather than a boost in hours. There were scarcely any more hours worked in July than
From the Highrise Foghorn: A dramatic change is set to take place in the Sydney apartment land market and a similar trend is taking place in Melbourne, albeit for different reasons. Apartment land prices in these two cities have skyrocketed in recent years — particularly in Sydney — driven by Chinese buying of off-the-plan apartments
More from Moody’s: Moody’s Investors Service has today revised to negative from stable the outlooks on the ratings of the four major New Zealand banks. The banks affected are ANZ Bank New Zealand Limited, ASB Bank Limited, Bank of New Zealand and Westpac New Zealand Limited. At the same time, Moody’s has affirmed the four banks’ Aa3 long-term senior
From the Global News: Evidence from realtors and MLS data is showing the Vancouver real estate market is in the midst of a major slow down, with prices dropping and sales plummeting, but some experts say it’s too soon to tell. While August is typically one of the slowest months for real estate transactions, MLS
From Bill Evans of Westpac today comes a big picture piece: My Weekly piece is, as expected, usually focussed on short term market and policy issues. In the piece below I set out some longer term musings that will have some near term significance but are more appropriate for putting longer term issues in perspective.
From Moody’s: Moody’s Investors Service has today affirmed the ratings of all Australian banks, but revised the rating outlooks of five banks to negative from stable. The banks with revised outlooks include Australia’s four major banks, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank Limited (NAB), and Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac). All
From David Uren: Australia’s debt could blow out by more than $100 billion if the budget is wrong in its prediction that the economy will return to pre-crisis growth and the Turnbull government is unable to win Senate support for all of its outstanding savings measures. An analysis prepared by Deloitte Access Economics shows the
From the AFR: A senior Queensland academic says inner Brisbane apartment prices could fall as much as 25 per cent over the next 12 to 18 months as Asian buyers walk away from settlements. Chris Eves, professor of property economics at the Queensland University of Technology, said overseas buyers who had purchased off-the-plan in the past six or
Will the real leader of the Coalition please stand up, from the AFR: Government plans to limit lifetime non-concessional superannuation contributions to $500,000 are unravelling with Treasurer Scott Morrison now considering either lifting the limit to $750,000 or making the cap prospective. The extra options have been put on the table in order to placate a restive Coalition backbench ahead of
Today I’m going to upgrade my short term outlook for iron ore, LNG prices and the Aussie dollar. I don’t cover coal in detail but it is also clear that both versions of it will remain strong in the near term. All are based on the way in which macro and market structure factors combine over
There’s always one and in this cycle it’s corporate debt, from BofAML: In the first several years 2010-2013 the Fed-induced declining interest rates and QE drove retail money into bond funds and ETFs. Then increasingly with the help from foreign central banks – in response to global weakness the – foreign investor moved in.
Iron ore charts for August 18, 2016: Tianjin benchmark eased 0.5% to $60.80. Paper was firm overnight but is down from yesterday still. Rebar is firm. In news, there is debate around China steel output this year at the AFR: At the start of the year China’s most respected commodities forecaster, MySteel, was predicting a
Macro & Markets Fund managers dip into cash as equity markets rally on – Fairfax In upcoming OPEC meeting, consensus could hinge on Iran’s aging oilfields – Financial Post NY Fed, Bangladesh central bank to resume normal money transfers: sources – Reuters China smelters face lowest fees in 4 years as zinc market tightens Top steel
From Xinua: Melbourne, the capital of the Australian state of Victoria, has been named the world’s most liveable city for a record sixth consecutive year. The Global Liveability Ranking, released by The Economist on Thursday, scored 140 cities on healthcare, infrastructure, culture, environment and stability and awarded Melbourne a total of 97.5 out of a
The Fortescue rocket has ignited again today, up 3.5% and blasting to a new rally high: The reason is straight forward. It’s not Banana Man today, it’s Macquarie Bank: Iron-ore prices continue to trade above our expectations and if sustained present material upside risk to our base case forecasts for FMG. Macquarie’s latest China Steel Survey suggests
From the AFR: Origin Energy has followed through on its advice it could cut the dividend unless oil prices rebounded, putting the priority on debt reduction after posting a $589 million full-year loss. Underlying profit before impairments for plunged 41 per cent in 2015-16 to $354 million, falling short of JPMorgan’s estimate of $392 million and Citigroup’s
From Smart Investor: Resource stocks are now starting to look very interesting. The analysts have been downgrading their numbers for four or five years now so they have been in perpetual downgrade mode. The problem for analysts is that they were way too bullish on commodities when they were falling and were continually having to adjust
China’s house prices for July are out and the boom is ebbing though still in the second derivative. Monthly gains are down to 0.6% and annual 7.9%: The number of cities with rising prices has topped out in the 70 city index and fallen back to 51, with three flat and 16 falling: The split
A quick addendum to my employment post on casualisation. We’ve noted before the cyclical change in the labour market as the economy swings from the hard productive forces of the mining boom to the soft and unproductive forces of the services economy: The ‘bedpan economy’ as we like to call it, which requires a lot more
As I reported earlier, the ABS has released July Labour Force figures and the headline numbers were stronger than consensus with 26,200 jobs created versus 10k expected. The breakdown was less sanguine with full time hammered -45,400 and part-time rising 71,600: The participation rate lifted slightly: Which held the unemployment rate up a little at 5.7%: Total
