By Leith van Onselen 60 Minutes’ excellent ‘Big Australia’ demolition featured Shane Geha, managing director of EG – “a leading real estate investment fund manager” . According to their website: As founding Managing Director of EG’s Urban Planning business, Shane bears overall responsibility for all EG’s rezoning projects. Shane has extensive rezoning experience and brings a
It’s not often that MB gets out-beared but it’s happening at the moment, via News: Mr Adams said an inversion of the “one year to 10 year” yield curve had been the most accurate prediction of a coming recession since the 1960s — a phenomenon also recognised by the US Federal Reserve. …In a previous
By Leith van Onselen The NSW Office of State Revenue has released stamp duty data to February, which reveals a $1.5 billion (21%) decline over the past year and a $1.8 billion (24%) decline since stamp duty receipts peaked in October 2017: The latest retracement in stamp duty receipts follows a sharp 19% decline in
Via CoreLogic’s weekly property leading indicators. Nobody wants to get a mortgage: Nor does anyone want to list their property: It’s a Mexican standoff with sellers losing as unsold stock mounts. Full report.
By Leith van Onselen With Monday’s release of Australia’s population data for the September quarter, it’s once again time to examine how Australia’s dwelling supply is tracking against population growth. The below charts track the following, which are based on the latest available quarterly data: Dwelling approvals to December 2018; Dwelling commencements to September 2018;
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Man stole $122m from Facebook and Google by sending them random bills, which the companies dutifully paid – sniply The Credit-Card Kingmaker – WSJ With the iPhone Sputtering, Apple Bets Its Future on TV and News – WSJ How Often Is It a Stock-Picker’s Market? – A Wealth of
Asian stock markets have fallen sharply in response to the poor showing on Wall Street on Friday night as the US bond yield curve inversion and the growing likelihood of a European recession weigh heavily. The Shanghai Composite is down nearly 0.9% going into the close to get back below 3100 points, currently at 3075 while the
By Leith van Onselen Labor has indicated it might seek to excise investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses in free-trade agreements (FTAs) with Indonesia and Peru if it wins the upcoming federal election. Such clauses can be used by foreign companies to sue the federal government; tobacco company Philip Morris used them to sue the government
By Leith van Onselen With Sydney’s housing market suffering the second worst price bust in modern history: First home buyers (FHBs) are shunning the market, despite housing becoming more affordable. From Domain: Sydney properties are becoming more affordable as prices fall, but the number of first-home buyer stamp duty exemptions and concessions have taken a
Via News comes Mediscare 2.0: The campaign that caused irreparable damage to Malcolm Turnbull’s government at the last election is being revived a week before the Budget. [Labor] is promising to end the Medicare rebate freeze in its first 50 days, should it win power. …Mr Shorten’s claim the Coalition was planning to privatise parts of
By Leith van Onselen Labor’s plans to increase the superannuation guarantee to 12% is under pressure, following Treasury modelling showing the money being spent on the Age Pension pension is falling faster than had been predicted. The Age Pension cost 2.9% of GDP in 2002, and had been tipped to rise to 4.6% by 2042.
By Leith van Onselen Analysts at Deutsche bank believe they have found a major flaw in APRA’s mortgage data, which significantly understates average loan size. Basically, because APRA has failed to adjust for split-loans, the $276,000 average loan size figure has been understated by around 40%, according to Deutsche, thus giving regulators a false sense
The Australian dollar is grinding lower today as risk is spooked globally: Bonds remain heavily bid: Stocks have firmed for a mighty double top. S&P futures are down solidly: Dalian can’t catch a bid despite new supply threats: Big Iron is down: Big Gas even more: Big Gold is firm with NCM breaking out: Big
Watch Part One Here Watch Part Two Here 60 Minutes last night did a great job analysing the ‘Big Australia’ debate, and certainly put the ABC’s recent biased investigations to shame. The best excerpt is in Part One, when reporter Liam Bartlett wedged Immigration Minister Alan Tudge, who couldn’t even answer when asked how big
Nice from Richard McGregor via Newsroom: Talk of strained relations between New Zealand and China has led to fears of trade reprisals – but one expert says the Asian superpower has been “all bark and no bite” with its threats in recent years. Richard McGregor, an Australian journalist who spent nearly a decade as the
Because the end of the world takes time. Missed this Friday: It only warned in February and here we are again. Or, if you enjoy the cup half full approach, try the following description from one McGrath agent recently: 2019 looks more promising than many would have thought. November and December were very tough but
By Leith van Onselen Former editor of the Canberra Times, Crispin Hull, has continued his herculean battle against the ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration policy, penning the following demolition of the Coalition’s fake immigration cuts: [Morrison] announced that net immigration will be capped at 160,000 a year for the next four years. Previously it was nominally
Via Martin North: Latest data released today from the DFA household surveys shows that a smaller number of potential first time buyers are now getting help from their parents to buy property. This video explains what is going on. At its height 60% of first time buyers were getting help from their parents, but this
From Bloomberg: Australia’s best-performing superannuation fund is going against the grain by avoiding cash and bonds, betting the 30-year investment horizon of its youthful members means it can ride out looming economic shocks. Hostplus, which represents swathes of the country’s baristas and restaurant waiters, had about 53 per cent of its $40 billion invested in
Lol, the LNP is so corrupt it is difficult to know where to look. Via Banking Day: Which would you prefer? Bill Shorten’s town hall tour of Australia to wrap up the Hayne royal commission into banking? Or policy making of the kind dished up by Josh Frydenberg on Friday? The government has decided not
By Leith van Onselen Ove the weekend, CoreLogic’s daily house price index revealed that Perth dwelling value declines have smashed through 18%: This is by far the biggest bust on record for Perth, with the current 16% decline far eclipsing prior price corrections, both in terms of size and duration: The quarterly pace of decline
Because the only numbers that matter are those in your party room, via the AFR: Scott Morrison and Nationals leader Michael McCormack are working on a peace deal over coal fired power to prevent another outbreak of hostilities within the Coalition before the federal election. After the Nationals performed poorly in Saturday’s NSW state election
By Leith van Onselen For more than a decade, the Productivity Commission (PC) has debunked the common myth that immigration can overcome population ageing. For example: PC (2005): “Despite popular thinking to the contrary, immigration policy is also not a feasible countermeasure [to an ageing population]. It affects population numbers more than the age structure”.
This wont improve the market mood: There’s nothing quite like an open ended profit warning.
You losers! That must be what the gas cartel is thinking as Asian LNG prices crater owing to oversupply: Reuters is reporting that Asian LNG spot prices have now broken the US$5.00 per million Btu mark. A lack of growth in demand and continued high levels of supply have been the primary causes of the recent
By Chris Becker This may end up being the most important Trading Week of the year with the looming Brexit, the Mueller report fallout and ongoing concern over a European recession and US inverted yield curve combined with a big blowout in the US budget deficit. Looming bad news everywhere with US stocks plunging on Friday
Via the AFR today comes Warwick McKibbin: “If you think about what the Reserve Bank thinks, they’re looking ahead one or two years,” he said. “You don’t want to be in the position of cutting interest rates when you might actually have to be raising interest rates”. “And if you look at what the Labor
Warp Factor 9 now as the long end of the Aussie bond curve was absolutely plastered to all-time low yields on German recession fears. The short end is headed the same way: The curve is now inverted right out to the six year with the long end still flattening screaming ‘recession’ at a lunatic RBA:
Iron ore prices for March 24, 2019: Spot up on the Pilbara cyclone. Everything else at peace. Here’s the latest image: RIO’s Cape Lambert facilities are very close to the red zone. That’s 200mt of capacity at risk. The best case is going to lose a week’s worth of shipments which will not help Q1 GDP.
DXY rebounded Friday night as EUR was hammered: AUD was down against DMs: But wider EMs were pulverised: Brent fell: Gold held on: Metals were hit: Miners smashed: EM stocks too: Junk was OK: Treasuries soared: And bunds: Aussie yields crashed to record lows across the long end: And stocks shed 2%: What went wrong
