This week’s LIVE webinar (12:30pm AEST, Thursday 18 April) – we look at recent numbers out of China, it’s subsequent investment implications and how we are adjusting portfolios to take advantage. Join MB Fund’s Head of Investments Damien Klassen, Chief Strategist David Llewellyn Smith and Tim Fuller as we discuss recent global data points and how
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Mapping the Global Migration of Millionaires – Visual Capitalist China and Russia Buy Gold as US Keeps Gold Prices Artificially Low – Bunker Basics The Bank of England gives a masterclass on the “very real” risks of climate change – Qz Will we survive the next financial crisis? – Politico Belarus President
A sea of red across Asian stocks markets today in reaction to overnight caution on Wall Street with the latest unemployment print locally causing the ASX200 to slip while Japanese markets have given up almost all of their recent gains as Yen strengthened on the risk off move. The Shanghai Composite is set to close lower
Via BI: As seen in the table below from employment website SEEK, job advertisements for property workers are now also falling fast. Seek has recorded the percentage change in advertisements on its platform in the year to March. The downturn in the housing market has had a major impact on demand for workers with ads
Via Westpac: • Westpac’s forecast for the March quarter CPI is 0.1%qtr with the annual pace easing back to 1.4%yr from 1.8%yr. • The March quarter is a seasonally soft quarter with the ABS projecting a seasonal factor of +0.2ppt. The seasonally adjusted CPI is forecast to rise 0.3%. • Core inflation is forecast to
Cross-posted from Independent Australia: Morrison Government’s population plan “capped” permanent migration at 160,000 but its 2019 Budget uncapped net migration to 270,000. This has not been challenged by the Labor Opposition and so, our steep population growth is removed from the political contest, ignoring the environmental and electoral objections. UP UNTIL CHRISTCHURCH, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s muscular migration brand was “Stop
Via the NAB quarterly business survey: Both business conditions and confidence declined in the quarter. Conditions continued its downward trend since peaking in early 2018 and is now only just above average, suggesting the loss of momentum in the business sector has continued into early 2019. Confidence and forward orders turned negative in the quarter
CoreLogic’s Cameron Kusher has released a research note looking at dwelling commencement trends across Australia’s various sub-components, which shows that risks are skewed towards high-rise construction: The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recently released the quarterly Building Activity data for December 2018. The release is a treasure-trove of data and includes information on dwelling commencements,
By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for March, which registered a solid 25,700 increase in total employment but a 0.1% increase in the headline unemployment rate (to 5.0%) because of a 0.1% rise in labour force participation. In trend terms, the unemployment
By Leith van Onselen Last weekend, CoreLogic released its preliminary auction clearance rates, which revealed the following results: Today, CoreLogic has released its final auction results, which reported a 5.0% decline in the final national auction clearance rate to 52.2% – slightly below last week’s final clearance rate of 52.6%: As you can see, Sydney’s final
By Leith van Onselen New Zealand will remain one of the few developed nations in the world not to have a capital gains tax (CGT), after the Labour-led Government yesterday ruled-out implementing such a measure. From Interest.co.nz: The Government will not introduce a Capital Gains Tax having failed to reach a consensus, with coalition partner
By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 18 April 2019, the CoreLogic 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, fell another 0.07%: Values fell across four major markets: So far in April, home values have fallen by 0.35% at the 5-city level, with all major capitals falling: The
This week’s LIVE webinar (12:30pm AEST, Thursday 18 April) we look at recent numbers out of China and examine what this means for Australian and global investment trends. Join MB Fund’s Head of Investments Damien Klassen, Chief Strategist David Llewellyn Smith and Tim Fuller as we discuss recent global data points and how we are
ABS Labor Force is out for March and the news is still pretty good: MARCH KEY POINTS TREND ESTIMATES Employment increased 20,700 to 12,790,000 persons. Full-time employment increased 18,000 to 8,781,800 persons and part-time employment increased 2,700 to 4,008,200 persons. Unemployment increased 3,000 to 675,700 persons. Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.0%. Participation rate remained
It certainly got overbought as we know, via Credit Suisse: And yields have been rising now for few weeks: The curve has also steepened a little: Though spreads to the US have not really compressed much at all: I still expect the Aussie economy to be dragged into the housing bust throughout H2 and the RBA
Via The Australian: Senator Storer said if an incoming Labor government dragged the Senate back before June 30 to ram through part of its policy platform before the composition of the upper house changes following the election, he would attempt to push the government to ban Treasury costings of opposition parties. “Treasury and all other
By Leith van Onselen The decline in EU immigration into the UK in the wake of the Brexit Turmoil has proven to be a massive boon for workers, with unemployment falling to the lowest level since the 1970s and UK wages surging: Average wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade and employment
Via the FT: Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who fought Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016, led the field of 18 Democrats in the first quarter of the year by raising $18m, according to the Federal Election Commission. He was followed by Kamala Harris, the California senator, who raised $12m in the first
Another bank profit warning: UBS remains highly skeptical: …underlying trends are likely to remain very soft and deteriorating: (1) Volume growth should continue to slow as the credit squeeze continues and banks move to improve expense verification (reduced reliance on the HEM benchmark). (2) A bounce in NIM is expected following mortgage repricing. But how
Via the CBA Flash PMI: The Commonwealth Bank Flash Services Business Activity Index is designed to provide a timely indication of changes in business activity in the Australian service sector economy as a whole. Readings above 50.0 signal an improvement in business activity on the previous month, while readings below 50.0 show deterioration. Services business
Digital Finance Analytics’ principal analyst, Martin North, appeared on the 7.30 Report last night where he and Stephen Koukoulas (‘The Kouk’) debated the threat of negative equity as Aussie house prices fall: New data from Digital Finance Analytics has revealed there are 3,900 households in this post code, where the owner has a mortgage higher
Via Bloomie: Officials are drafting measures to bolster sales of cars and electronics, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because they aren’t authorized to discuss the plan. That news coincided with data showing a 6.4 percent year-on-year expansion in the first quarter — beating economists’ estimates. China’s latest
The world’s most boring election continues. Via The Australian comes the cost carbon mitigation: Australian businesses could be forced to spend more than $25 billion on international carbon credits to meet Labor’s 45 per cent emissions reduction targets by 2030, jeopardising one of Bill Shorten’s fundamental election pillars, which he declared would have no cost to
Iron ore prices for April 17, 2019: Spot spanked on Brucutu. Paper more. Steel solid. Port stocks are climbing, 149mt last week, suggesting no shortage or ore. We might see some price strength as mills restock a little longer but the clear risk now is more price falls moving into May/June which is a
DXY was down last night with EUR and CNY up: AUD is still warm versus DMs: Mixed against EMs: Gold is struggling. I’m turning more favourable: Oil eased: Copper wants to chase Chinese stimulus: Big miners were soft as iron ore fell: Em stocks are grinding higher: Junk fell: Treasuries were bid: Bunds sold: Aussie
By Chris Becker Another mixed session on stocks overnight with European bourses advancing again while Wall Street stalled due to a drop in health care stocks from the “Mediscare for all” and a slump in oil prices. The USD firmed slightly against the undollars, particularly gold which made another new daily low while CPI prints
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: We think that the RBA will cut rates, probably in 2H. For further discussion of this view, please see our recent article “Can you feel the tension at the RBA” dated 20 March 2019. But we also think that officials are thinking about monetary policy with reference
By Leith van Onselen While Australia may currently be a preferred destination for international students, as evidenced by nearly half a million student visas on issue at the end of 2018: Competition for international students is heating-up, both from competitor countries and the source nations. For example, the Canadian Government is planning to expand its
Via Bill Evans at Westpac: The minutes of the April monetary policy meeting of the Reserve Bank Board have provided the clearest signal yet that the Bank would be prepared to cut the cash rate. Firstly, the final section “Considerations for Monetary Policy” states “a lower level of interest rates could still be expected to
Not that it is gospel or anything but not completely useless either: The Department of Jobs and Small Business’ Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment (the Indicator) has fallen for the twelfth consecutive month in April 2019, following a rise of eight consecutive months. The Indicator’s decline this month is due to falls in the US
