By Leith van Onselen It’s Groundhog Day once more with the Treasurer for the Property Council of Australia, Scott Morrison, making misleading claims that Labor’s plan to unwind negative gearing would force-up rents. From The AFR: Treasurer Scott Morrison said cutting negative gearing tax breaks was a “reckless” policy that would hurt the 30 per
From Westpac: • The Westpac MNI China Consumer Sentiment Indicator slipped back in November, dipping 1.9% to 114.9 from 117.1 in October. The decline follows a promising lift in the previous two months that started as a rebound from a weather-affected low in August. Stepping back from recent monthly moves, sentiment remains stuck well below
And down we go. Dalian is still limit down for both iron ore: And coking coal: Big Iron is trailing with BHP -3.2%, RIO -3.6%, FMG -4.2% and WHC -3.7%: The FMG chart is enough to terrify the pants off a chartist with a spectacular double top threatening: It is a bubble and may deflate
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released dwelling approvals data for the month of October. At the national level, the number of dwelling approvals fell by a seasonally adjusted 12.6% to 16,279. The overall fall was driven by the volatile unit and apartment segment, which fell by 24.8%, although house
By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released its private sector credit aggregates data for the month of October: A chart showing the long-run breakdown in the components is provided below: Personal credit growth (0.0% MoM; -0.2% QoQ; -1.1% YoY) is still in the gutter, whereas business credit growth (0.5% MoM;
By Leith van Onselen CoreLogic’s dwelling price results are in for November, with a 0.12% rise in values recorded over the month at the 5-city level (see next chart). It was the 12th monthly rise in home values in a row (see next chart). Over the quarter, price growth fell back to 1.67% at the
This is a very poor look, from the NYT: Steven Terner Mnuchin, a financier with deep roots on Wall Street and in Hollywood but no government experience, is expected to be named Donald J. Trump’s Treasury secretary as soon as Wednesday, people close to the transition say. Mr. Mnuchin, 53, was the national finance chairman
Lol, if you live long enough you get to see everything, from The Australian: The federal government plans to overhaul the petroleum resource rent tax, crude oil excise and related royalties in the wake of falling revenues. Treasurer Scott Morrison said revenue from the PRRT had halved since 2012-13 to $800 million and crude oil
From the Yahoo: The boss of CITIC’s Sino Iron magnetite project says the company expects to ship more than 10 million tonnes of concentrate this year after completion and commissioning of all of its production lines. That is well below the massive facility’s 24 million tonne-a-year nameplate capacity but CITIC Pacific Mining boss Zhang Jijing
By Leith van Onselen The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has released its latest financial stability report (FSR) which contains several stark warnings about the build-up of risks in the housing market: Vulnerabilities in the housing market have increased in the past six months. Despite some recent softening, house price growth in Auckland remains
Yes, he’s back, from APRA October lending figures today, month on month growth for specufestor mortgages has now rebounded to 0.5% and year on year is back to 3%: An incipient war for specufestors is building between CBA and WBC, both of which are running close to the 10% speed limit for the system on
By Chris Becker Caution on risk markets in Asia transferred to Europe last night at first, but were alayed as German CPI came in bang on target – i.e two fifths of nothing. All the noise was in Vienna with the rabble called OPEC as the Iranians rejected any calls for cuts, and the Saudis demanding
From Citi: 1. The referendum is not a make-or-break moment for Italian politics. Although important, near-term risks stemming from the referendum outcome may be overstated. A No vote would maintain the (perhaps not ideal, but wellknown) institutional status quo, although it could lead to government resignations. We reckon on balance the reform is positive for
Ripping stuff from one Mark Blyth who predicted it all:
By Leith van Onselen Michael Bayliss and Mark Allen have penned an excellent piece over at New Matilda calling on the left to stop ceding the immigration debate to the likes of Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson and instead offer a sensible alternative that balances sustainability with social justice: The very mention of the word
The USD continued its consolidation last night: Commodity currencies were weak except Aussie and Loonie: Gold remains weak: Oil was hammered: Base metals too: And big miners: High yield debt in the US and EMs held up: EM shares rallied: As did US bonds: Stocks held on: As the OPEC deal sputters, the inflation trade
By Leith van Onselen Another day, another scandal involving the importation of foreign workers to do jobs that Australians could do. This time the Victorian regional town of Geelong is at forefront. Following the closure of Ford’s engine plant in September, resulting in the loss of around 200 jobs, as well as the closure of
By Leith van Onselen On Friday, the Coalition erupted into civil war when NSW Planning Minister, Rob Stokes, threw a hand grenade at the Turnbull Government’s housing policy, arguing that changes to negative gearing are necessary to make housing more affordable. From The Australian: “We should not be content to live in a society where
By Leith van Onselen The ABC’s Stephen Letts has published an article on the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority’s (APRA) success in curbing speculative borrowing by property investors following the implementation of its 10% speed limit on investor mortgage growth in December 2014: Since the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority imposed tighter controls two years ago, new
Chris Bowen is talking it up, or is that down, at the AFR: Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen will on Wednesday outline the bleak scenario facing the nation’s banks and heavily indebted households if the AAA credit rating is lost, and blame the Turnbull government for exploding federal debt by $4500 a person in Australia. …According
Iron ore charts for November 29, 2016: Tianjin benchmark crashed -6.4% to $75.10. Iron ore paper crashed -4.5% yesterday and is limit down another -6% overnight. Coking coal futures crashed limit down. Rebar held up but futures crashed. Thermal coal crashed. CISA steel output for the first ten days of November lifted 1.2% to 1.72mt.
The Brent oil price plunged -4% last night to $47.37 as an inept Saudi Arabia flopped all over its own deal: Pesky Iraq and Iran have declared that they will not cut and Saudi has declared neither will it if they don’t. What did Saudi think its enemies would do when it panic back-flipped on its own
From the SCMP: Beijing is embarking on a massive policy shift designed to stem capital flight by curbing outbound investment, sources say. Tighter control of overseas investment is likely to put an end to a trophy-asset shopping spree by well-connected companies such as Anbang Insurance and Dalian Wanda, with Beijing ready to cut the supply
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Missing the Economic Big Picture – Project Syndicate Debating What’s Wrong With Macroeconomics – Bloomberg ’Basel Is on Life Support’ in Trump Era – nationalmortgagenews Is OPEC Playing The Oil Markets Again? – Oil Price OPEC makes last-ditch bid to save oil deal as tensions grow – Reuters How Iran, Russia Could Derail Oil-Production
by Chris Becker Markets were mixed in Asia together on the poor lead overnight, coupled with turmoil in Korea and a pullback in oil and other commodity prices. The Shanghai Composite was up nearly 0.5% after lunch but has pared that back to remain positive going into the close at 3282 points, still making good on
