As we round out 2 years in the saddle, we are happy to announce round three of the MB Fund seminar series. This year’s presentation is titled Global Shocker! It will examine the mushrooming threats in Australia’s external environment including Cold War 2.0 and trade wars, Brexit, a slowing China and US recession, as well as their impacts
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: How Corporations Prevent Workers From Getting Ahead – Who What Why Netflix Stock May Never See $400 High’s Again – BP Rising Lidl’s Own Payment System To Challenge Apple And Google – Forbes Americas: The Numbers Are In, and Trump’s Tax Cuts Are a Bust – Truth Dig Report:
The extraordinary growth in international student numbers (see below chart) has led to accusations that Australia’s tertiary education providers are using them as “cash cows” to be milked for easy fees and profits: And it’s not hard to see why. As illustrated in the next chart from the NSW Auditor-General, fees from international students roughly
Via Michael Janda at the ABC: The game is rigged and the fix is in. The east coast housing market downturn is over … at least for now. Don’t take my word for it. A veritable army of tipsters have called the bottom over recent weeks. They include property analysis firms SQM Research, Domain and CoreLogic, AMP
Via the excellent Richard McGregor at CNN: The backlash abroad against President Xi Jinping’s China, at least in developed nations, has spread rapidly in the last year. Some countries, like Australia and Canada, feel patronized and bullied. Neighbors worry they are being marginalized. Advanced industrial nations, especially Germany and South Korea, see China coming at
The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for June has been released, which shows that Canadian house prices rose by 0.8% across the 11 major markets, with annual growth falling to 0.5%: Across the three major markets, values fell by 0.3% in Vancouver in June, but rose by 1.3% in Toronto and by 0.8% in Montreal.
Via Banking Day: Two closely related class actions will proceed against Commonwealth Bank over its alleged failure to comply with Anti-Money Laundering laws. Justice David Yates of the Federal Court of Australia in the last week has made “Cooperative Case Management” orders and largely dismissed concerns raised by the bank. The applicant in the Zonia
NSW’s peak strata body warns that Sydney apartment owners are facing a $1 billion repair bill to replace dangerous flammable cladding and has called on taxpayers to pay. From The SMH: Mr Duggan estimated that $1 billion was “a more appropriate figure” to remedy the more than 600 buildings affected by combustible cladding. “Enough is
Via Goldman: …as Goldman points out, amid the lingering trade tensions and continued depreciation of CNY in the first half of June, the bank’s preferred gauge of FX flows showed a dramatic jump in June outflows to the tune of $20 billion compared to an inflow of $13 billion in May, while the exporters’ trade repatriation ratio
In the September 2017 general election, the New Zealand Labour Party launched a plan to reduce immigration by 20,000 to 30,000 in a bid to relieve chronic housing and infrastructure pressures (especially around Auckland): …in recent years our population has been growing rapidly as record numbers of migrants arrive here. This has happened without the
Above is an interesting graphical summary of Australia’s housing market by ABC News. Here’s the excerpt accompanying the video presentation: Australia has experienced one of the world’s biggest home price booms, driven by near world record levels of household debt. This house of cards looked to be teetering, with double-digit price falls in Australia’s two
Farewell Chinese soft power. Hello Angry China, via The Guardian: Australian writer Yang Hengjun is expected to be formally charged with endangering national security, according to his lawyer. Yang, a Chinese public intellectual who has long advocated for democratic reforms in China, has been detained for the last six months in an unknown location in China.
When it comes to cruelty against the unemployed, it’s hard to top the Morrison Government. Listen to lousy ScoMo today on a Newstart rise: “The government has no plans to do that,” he said. “We will continue to increase Newstart every six months as has always been the practice. “More importantly, for those who are
From CoreLogic’s Cameron Kusher: CoreLogic estimates of monthly settled sales data points to a levelling in housing market activity, following several years of falling home sales according to research by analyst Cameron Kusher. Despite signs that market activity is leveling out, annual transaction numbers remain lower year on year across every capital city region of
The latest Roy Morgan Research (RMR) unemployment estimate for June fell 1.1% to 9.2%, but was up 0.5% year-on-year: Labour underutilisation also fell to 18.6%, down 0.3% year-on-year: Below are the key points from the release: In June 1.25 million Australians were unemployed (9.2% of the workforce) with an additional 1.28 million (9.4%) now under-employed.
Contemporary Australian governance is all about diffused responsibility. Rule one in this new public disorder is to pretend to reform by instructing the demonstrably failed to do it right. It’s virtue signalling writ large that changes nothing while protecting your arse. To wit. Josh Recessionberg, who stupidly reappointed APRA chairman Wayne Byers before he got
As noted yesterday, Australian imports have stalled over the past year or so as domestic demand crashed: Now the job losses are here, via the AFR: DP World has cut 200 jobs as a new wave of industrial action hit its terminals, sparking outrage from the maritime union. The stevedore announced on Thursday it would
Via The Australian: If we want more affordable gas and cheaper, more predictable electricity generation then we need to increase the gas supply. This is also the view of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. If we want to receive billions of dollars in royalties and unleash resource-driven jobs and prosperity, we need to force
CoreLogic’s daily house price index reveals that Perth’s dwelling value declines have plunged through 20%, marking by far the biggest and longest capital city decline in modern Australian history: While the other major capitals are showing improvement, the quarterly pace of decline in Perth has worsened to 2.4%, suggesting further heavy losses: In a similar
With good reason. As we know, Housing Minister Michael Sukkar has morphed from policymaker to spiv in the blink of an eye, via The Australian: Housing Minister Michael Sukkar has urged first-home buyers to try to snap up a property now, ahead of the government’s signature loan deposit scheme starting next year, warning that housing prices
Via Domain: Billions of dollars of congestion-easing infrastructure projects that could boost the economy and increase safety are stuck years down the track as the Reserve Bank of Australia calls on the Morrison government to do more. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison promises to pull forward some infrastructure projects, an analysis of the federal budget
Via the Herald Sun comes the age of the celebrity wage thief: Speaking exclusively to the Herald Sun as the hefty bill was revealed, Calombaris rejected claims that years of underpayment were deliberate. He said he had tried to do the right thing at all times. “I am deeply sorry for what has happened, and
Reuters has the texture: “Demand is pretty good, but on the supply side there’s a little bit of change in the momentum,” said Helen Lau, mining and metals analyst at Argonaut Securities in Hong Kong. The market seems to have taken a pause, she said, following the sustained rally this year that had pushed the
By Chris Becker Here comes the Fed with more punch to revive this boring party! The NY chief of the Federal Reserve, John Williams, gave a big boost to risk markets overnight by goosing the easing question, sending stocks higher and slamming the USD down against all the undollars. Gold has broken out to a
DXY slumped last night. CNY was soft. EUR rose: The Australian dollar blasted off versus DMs: But was mixed against EMs: Gold broke out: Oil keeps falling: Metals keep laughing: Miners were soft: EM stocks firm: Junk fell with oil: Treasuries rampaged: With bunds: Aussie bonds were bid: Stocks rebounded from losses: Westpac has the
This time at the ABC: Sally Zhang* recently bought an essay from a ghostwriter for the first time — not because she struggles to write, but rather so she could enjoy an early holiday. Ms Zhang, a Chinese international student who is undertaking a postgraduate degree at the University of Western Australia, took up the
Via Westpac: An expected soft update but a robust trend in participation is making it very hard to see unemployment getting below 5% any time soon, let alone getting down the RBA’s natural rate of 4.5%. Westpac is forecasting the unemployment rate to rise from here. The June Labour Force Survey reported a 500 gain
In the week ended 18 July 2019, the CoreLogic 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, rose by 0.08%: Values rose across Sydney and Melbourne but fell across the other major markets: The quarterly decline is running at 0.75%, with all major markets suffering losses: Annual losses are running
Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for June revealed a deteriorating Australian youth labour market – i.e. those aged 15 to 24 years old – with both full-time and total jobs growth falling and unemployment and underemployment rising. The trend headline unemployment rate rose to 12.0%: Total employment growth for those aged 15-24 years has dived:
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: As Amazon Faces Grilling in Congress, EU Launches Antitrust Probe of Online Behemoth – Common Dreams Amazon amends seller terms worldwide after German antitrust action – TechCrunch The Only Way Is Down for Central Bankers Already at Peak Rates – Bloomberg A Brief History of Doom: 200 Years of
Stocks in Asia are again under pressure following the poor lead from Wall Street, but also from a slump in trade figures in Japan, sending Japanese stocks falling as Yen gained against USD. The Aussie dollar has lifted inexorably after a poor unemployment print, dragging the Kiwi along for the ride. The Shanghai Composite gapped
