by Chris Becker Definitely risk off here in Asia today to finish the week on a low as stocks follow the poor overnight lead coming from the Spanish terrorist attack and the derailed Trump administration. Safe havens are the destination for hot money with gold, Yen and bonds rising. In mainland China the Shanghai Composite
Dalian has tried but largely failed to blow off again today: Big Iron is down: Big Gas too. ORG is showing promise, and why wouldn’t it, so long as you don’t mind stealing from pensioners: Big Gold is mixed and I’m still a seller here. North Korea is a non issue and the ECB is
By Gavin R Putland Some else wants to do your job. So why does it matter if you do it? In a logical world, if you don’t do your day job, your idleness imposes a loss on the rest of us. In the real world – where the official involuntary unemployment rate is rarely less
From Domainfax: Nick Xenophon will let the High Court decide his fate if it is confirmed he is a dual citizen, with the key Senate crossbencher determined to dig in and not resign from the Senate. Senator Xenophon is urgently seeking clarification from the British Home Office over his citizenship status after questions were raised about his father’s nationality.
By Martin North, cross-posted from the Digital Finance Analytics Blog: We had significant reaction to yesterday’s post on the “normal” status of high household debt. So today we take the argument further using data from the RBA Household Balance Sheet series (E1) and the recent ABS data on income growth. The traditional argument trotted out
It think we can call this brand damage, via The Australian: Six transactions by five customers made through Commonwealth Bank’s intelligent deposit ATMs may have financed terrorism, Austrac has alleged. …Mr Clark said prosecution was “not something we take lightly”. …Asked whether the allegations listed in the 600-page statement of claim against CBA werer exhaustive,
Chinese house prices are slowing. The month on month gain in July was 0.4% and year on year was down to 9.4%: Top tier cities are sinking swiftly towards zero while lower tier growth is easing off: The number of cities with falling prices rose to 14 out of 70 and is slowly trending up:
Check this out from SBS’s The Feed: Not funny. Sad. Here’s what Dick Smith has had to say about the SBS attacks on him: And, most ironically, the launch of his recent report into the role that population growth is playing in inflating away the fulfillment of Australian youth’s most basic need: a roof over their heads:
By Leith van Onselen The Australian’s Adam Creighton has penned an interesting article today arguing that Australian real wages growth is likely to receive a short-term artificial reprieve thanks to the minimum wages decision and upcoming changes to the way the consumer price index (CPI) is calculated: Here’s a prediction for you. The workers’ run
Via Macquarie: China’s latest macro-release this week gave an ambiguous picture on the health of the economy. Conflicting signals from June and July numbers, between macro and micro data, and with respect to liquidity vs money supply are just some of the issues. We see the property market slowing in 2H but FAI picking
Via NAB forex: The positive outlook that we have identified in the recent months has shifted to a new level upon the July breakout close above key resistance levels. Both price and momentum triggers remain positive at a LT level. Recent negative price and ST/MT momentum triggers highlight risk of a further correction towards 0.7710/30.
A good piece from The Australian today by Roger Wilkins who is a former secretary of the federal Attorney-General’s Department: On a literal interpretation of section 44, it seems pretty clear that Joyce was not qualified to be elected. He was a citizen of a “foreign power”: New Zealand. The section says the “citizen of a
Via UBS: Reporting Season Progress Report Underwhelming Guidance Sees FY18 Estimates Crimped So far 73 members of the ASX200 have officially reported (47 large caps and 26 small caps). This represents c40% of ASX200 companies due to report in August though large-cap reporting season has now edged past the half way mark. Overall we believe
By Leith van Onselen The Australian’s David Uren has penned an article today supposedly exposing “Labor’s inequality lie”. Uren sites unpublished data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) survey, which shows that the percentage of people who are not able to pay their rent or mortgage on time has fallen from
Iron ore price charts for August 17: Tianjin benchmark rocked nearly 6% to $75.70. Paper calmed overnight. Steel lagged. Coals are pouring it on. This is a terms of trade bonanza for Australia right now.
By Chris Becker Markets ran for safe havens overnight in the wake of an awful terrorist attack in Spain and the realisation that yes, the US president is nuts and he’s not going anywhere or will get anything substantive done by a now impotent Republican Congress. And this is before Mueller’s investigation really gets
DXY held small gains last night: The Aussie fell against DMs: And was mixed against EMs: Gold signaled more risk for USD weakness: Brent held on: Base metals unwound the hysteria a little: EM stocks took a hit: US high yield did too. EM was better: US yields fell sharply: Europe a little less: Stocks
Via The Australian: Malcolm Turnbull is facing an escalating Labor attack over the stability of his government after a third cabinet minister owned up to being a dual citizen by descent, shocking observers with another test in the High Court that could reshape the ministry. Nationals deputy leader and Regional Affairs Minister Fiona Nash last
By Leith van Onselen Wages and earnings growth data this week has revealed the widening gulf between public servants and private sector employees. First, Wednesday’s wages price index frevealed that private sector wages grew by only 1.78% in the year to June 2017, whereas public sector wages grew by 2.39%: Next, yesterday’s Average Weekly Earnings
By Leith van Onselen This week’s economic data has not been kind to Australia’s workers. Wednesday’s wages price index released by the ABS revealed that wages growth across the nation hit another all-time low 1.86%, with private sector workers (1.78% growth) faring much worse than their public sector counterparts (+2.39%): The news wasn’t much better
By Leith van Onselen Another week, another #SardineSydney story in the mainstream media on how the city’s population is swelling way above the capacity of its infrastructure. The latest example relates to Sydney’s long suffering trains, whereby skyrocketing passenger numbers are causing chronic crush-loading. From The Canberra Times: Passenger demand for trains in Sydney has
Via Reuters: The federal government is pushing ahead with its expansion of the anti-money laundering (AML) regime, with the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC set to receive additional powers. The government unveiled changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 yesterday, which will also bring digital currency providers within the AML regime. Michael Keenan,
By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 17 August 2017, the CoreLogic 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, rose by 0.41%: The rise in prices was driven by the two biggest capitals and Adelaide: So far in August home values have risen by 0.82%, with everywhere but
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for July revealed some better news for those aged 15 to 24 years old that are looking for a job. Although the trend headline unemployment rate rose from 12.95% in June to 12.97%: Total employment growth for those aged 15-24 years of age has turned positive:
