The Sydney-Melbourne rivalry has been a century in the making. In the 26 years after Australia’s Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Government was temporarily housed in Melbourne. But after intense competition between the two cities for national-capital status, Canberra had to be built as a compromise to quell both cities. Since then, snide barbs have
By Leith van Onselen The release yesterday of the ABS population data for the 2016 Calendar year revealed some inconvenient truths for the Victorian economy. This data showed that Victoria’s population surged by an Australian record 146,628 people in the 2016 calendar year, representing a population growth rate of 2.40%: The State Government has been
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Assessing Global Imbalances: The Nuts and Bolts – IMF Unemployment insurance and reservation wages – VOX Tariffs on Solar Panels Could Slow Industry Growth by 66% – Bloomberg Sharing Economy: Why Blockchain Might Be Next Big Thing for Office Rental – Coin Telegraph Bitcoin, Ether Lead Digital Currency Slide
by Chris Becker Its been a fairly unexciting session in Asia today following the mixed but still positive lead from Wall Street overnight. Most Asian share markets finished in the green, but only just as most traders and algos steer into the financial conferences tonight in London, inching and dicing on each word said by
By Leith van Onselen The ABS released its Australian demographic statistics for the December quarter of 2016, which revealed that Australia’s overall population growth rate has accelerated led by unprecedented growth in Victoria, which has once again obliterated records. According to the ABS, Australia’s population rose by 1.55% in the year to December 2016 to
Dalian just went sick: Big Iron is following: The trigger appears to be a speech by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in which described the momentum of world economic recovery as “insufficient“: Anti-globalisation voices emerging World political risks on the rise Momentum of world economic recovery insufficient economic growth needs to ensure fairness, sustainability limiting trade
He sure ain’t going away: Tony Abbott has delivered a stinging rebuke to the Turnbull Government sharpening his own vision for the country and politics in Australia, promising he is “in no hurry to leave public life because we need strong liberal conservative voices now, more than ever”. In an address delivered in Brisbane this
By Leith van Onselen As a teaser to next week’s Member’s Special Report examining the Census data as it pertains to the housing market, below are some interesting summary charts showing the change in the composition of home ownership and renting over the past 20-years at the national level. First, the overall home ownership rate
From Bloxo today: Sentiment indicators show a stark gap between businesses and consumers. While surveyed business conditions are around decade-highs and business confidence is well above average, consumer confidence is below average. Importantly, it’s not just a confidence effect – growth in household spending has been sluggish. The main drivers appear to be weak growth
And now for CBA: Commonwealth Bank recognises the importance of ensuring borrowers can sustain a strong path to property ownership and will be reducing our owner-occupier standard variable rate for those repaying principal and interest. From 7 July, customers paying off the home they live in will benefit from a lower standard variable rate of
Via the AFR: Westpac Group is set to whack self-managed superannuation fund property investors with tougher rates, policies and processes in the lead up to this weekend’s changes to caps on lucrative tax concessions being imposed by the federal government. The changes will also coincide with the Westpac and subsidiaries, Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, St
From Citi: The oil bears look to have taken perhaps their final fling as money manager net positioning as a percentage of open interest fell to ~7% and just ~1% above the all-time low in 1Q’16 when oil prices fell below $30/bbl. Money managers have a record level of short positions open on ICE
First, Market Matters (whoever they are): According to Market Matters analysts it’s not a crazy idea. Miners traditionally outperform during the upcoming period and after considerable pressure there could be a buying opportunity in some mining names. “Locally the market continues to underperform with stocks down by 1 per cent last week versus the US
By Leith van Onselen The ABS has just released the Census 2016 data, which reveals that Australia’s population ballooned by 1.9 million people (+8.8%) in the five years to 2016, driven by a 1.3 million increase in new migrants. The key data is provided in the below tables: Melbourne’s population surged by an insane 485,200
By Leith van Onselen A fortnight ago, several labour market experts raised concern about the proliferation of unpaid internships, which risked becoming a black market for slave labour. Today, The ABC has picked up on the theme: Unpaid internships are increasingly becoming the default way of beginning a professional career in Australia. According to the
By Chris Becker Walk quietly and listen carefully to central bank doublespeak was the name of the game last night on risk markets as most stocks finished in scratch or slightly up mode on each side of the Atlantic. A big dump in the gold price and on e-currencies was the only real action
Chinese iron ore port inventories are out for last week and we saw another rise of 2.5mt to 141.45mt, a new world record: Proof positive, if any more were needed, that the iron ore glut is so large that the price cannot hold up unless inventories accumulate. And then, of course, there is this: The
By Leith van Onselen Amid anger within Victoria over the lack of infrastructure funding from Canberra, the Turnbull Government this morning announced that it would provide an additional $500 million in funding for Victoria’s regional rail network. From The Australian: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning pledged an extra $500 million of federal funds in
By Leith van Onselen Bloomberg has published an interesting article about how cities are facing swelter temperatures as climate change combines with the loss of green space to create a ‘heat-island’ effect: It’s so hot in Phoenix that American Airlines Group Inc has had to cancel scores of flights… The sweltering conditions, which have engulfed much of
By Leith van Onselen A ripper new report by LF Economics is out, entitled Parental Guidance Not Recommended: An Illustrated Guide to the Latest Trends in Affordability in the Australian Housing Market. It assesses the challenges new First Home Buyers (FHBs) and others face versus previous generations in not only achieving home ownership, but the financial risks many Australian
By Leith van Onselen From CoreLogic’s latest Pain & Gain report comes news that 13.3% of apartments transacted across Australia in the March quarter sold at a loss: As shown above, New South Wales was the outlier, with every other apartment market in the mainland recording double-digit resale losses. Losses for houses were much lower
The Aussie was strong against USD and EUR last night: But weak against EMs: Gold slumped: Brent rose: Base metals lifted: Big miners were mixed: EM stocks took off: As high yield rebounded with oil: But the US yield curve sank to new lows: With more tightening European spreads: And stocks rebounded: In short, oil
Great piece today from Peter Hartcher on the astonishing wreckage of Donald Trump: Donald Trump is unique among US presidents not for his rough treatment of America’s enemies but of its allies. His Vice-President, Mike Pence, must be aware of the problem. He offered Julie Bishop a way around it: “If you ever have any
From The Australian: Analysis by The Australian suggests the Coalition would lose 20 seats — four in NSW, nine in Queensland, two in South Australia and five in Western Australia — if the election matched the state-by-state swings shown in the quarterly Newspoll survey published this week. Three cabinet ministers — Peter Dutton, Christian Porter
Via the AFR: Senator Xenophon said the state needed to ensure the best possible investment conditions were in place to try to reinvigorate the local economy at a time when carmaker Holden was getting ready to close its operations in October. “My concern is that it will damage investment,” he said. “It’s quite a different
Red ink everywhere: I have no idea what it means.
