Via Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: US existing home sales surprised to the upside, rising by 1.3% in August, taking year-ended growth higher to 2.6% from 0.6%. Housing demand was looking weak at the end of 2018, but now it seems to be turning around, largely in response to lower bond yields and mortgage rates.
The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for August has been released, which shows that Canadian house prices rose by 0.4% across the 11 major markets, with annual growth improving to 0.6%: Across the three major markets, values fell by 0.8% in Vancouver in August, but rose by 0.8% in Toronto and by 1.1% in Montreal.
Via Warwick McKibbin today: In recent weeks, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has signalled his intent to endorse a new Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy. Typically, amendments to The Statement have occurred with a change in government or a change in Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). It is critically important that this
The Productivity Commission’s landmark 500-plus page report on Australia’s $2.6 trillion superannuation industry explicitly recommended abolishing compulsory life insurance for people aged under-25: Current settings are more a function of history than considered policy design. …many entrenched problems remain (and insurance accounts for over a third of member complaints against their fund)… Particularly for young
Goodbye Budget. Via Mining: The Australian export price of metallurgical coal (FOB hard coking coal Fastmarkets MB) used in steelmaking tanked 7% to $122.50 a tonne. That’s down almost $70 a tonne compared to the start of the year. Fastmarkets MB in a market report says the availability of ample cargoes of lower quality seaborne
Brickworks MD, Lindsay Partridge, says he is “horrified” by poor-quality building products and sub-standard construction practices, and has called for greater regulation and tighter controls. From The AFR: Mr Partridge said he had personally seen situations of poor building work and materials. “There was a couple of ones that have horrified me”… [and] has put
WeWork put its Initial Public Offering on ice this week as the company realised it would not be valued at the $47 billion that WeWork wanted. Indications are that WeWork would struggle to raise money with a $15 billion valuation. The process WeWork took to get a $47 billion valuation is instructive for anyone with
Josh Recessionberg collects his Golden Turd award at The Australian today: The principal driver was a record number of Australians in work, with 300,000 people finding a job, 100,000 more than Treasury forecast. This has the effect of increasing tax receipts and decreasing payments as people move from welfare to work. Export earnings in the
In today’s webinar and podcast, hear from MB Fund’s Head of Investment Damien Klassen, and Tim Fuller took a look into “The Ticking Debt Bomb”. Webinar slides available here Unfunded liabilities, astronomical government debt, record consumer debt, soaring corporate loans – where does the buck stop? Join us this week as we delve into the
Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for August revealed a mixed Australian youth labour market – i.e. those aged 15 to 24 years old – with falling unemployment offset by a record rise in underemployment. The trend headline unemployment rate fell slightly to 11.80% in August: Total employment growth for those aged 15-24 years rose marginally
A lot more. Via Domain: Attorney-General Christian Porter says he is prepared to legislate “significant” wage theft penalties – likely to be up to 10 years’ jail – to deter the “unacceptable” practice of persistently underpaying workers, as the government grapples with stagnant wages and a slowing economy. In a wage theft discussion paper to
Some charts from Damien Boey at Credit Suisse offering a lead on the labour market after yesterday’s weakening read: I can see this coming as: dwelling construction crashes; infrastructure starts to plateau; the NDIS roll out halves; and consumption remains weak. If we get anywhere zero employment growth then the unemployment rate will spike straight
Liugate day whatever. The questions continue to mount. Today Domain has a good podcast on Gladys Liu, starring Dave Crowe and Chris Uhlmann, which leaks that Ms Liu addressed the Coalition party room on Hong Kong last week, leaving everyone bemused and concerned. At 15.40: What did she say? Why don’t we know? Why is
Texture from Reuters: Investors are cautious as prospects of China’s economy remain uncertain, a Shanghai-based trader said. Demand can be maintained at the current level but is unlikely to grow further, said the trader, adding that supply of iron ore is relatively sufficient now. The question is not underlying demand. It is weak. The question
DXY eased last night as EUR firmed and CNY fell: The Australian dollar continues to fall versus DMs: Mixed against EMs: Gold firmed: Oil too: Metals were mixed: Miners fell: EM stocks eased: Junk firmed: Treasuries rose: Bunds too: And Aussie bonds: Stocks firmed: More US housing data last night indicating that the bond rally,
In the week ended 19 September 2019, the CoreLogic 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, surged another 0.34%: The rise in values was again driven by Sydney and Melbourne, where values rocketed: Quarterly dwelling values are now rising solidly, again driven by Sydney and Melbourne: However, annual losses
The OECD’s annual review of migration trends has revealed that Australia and New Zealand have the largest temporary migrant workforces in the world, which is raising competition for lower-income workers and suppressing wages: Australia had almost 750,000 permits for temporary migrants on issue in 2017, second in total number only to the US. As a
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released its Australian Demographic Statistics for the March quarter of 2019, which revealed that Australia’s population continues to grow manically led by surging net overseas migration (NOM), mostly into Sydney and Melbourne. According to the ABS, Australia’s population rose by 1.6% in the year to March 2019, well
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: The Fed just pumped $128 billion into markets to pull down interest rates, its first injection in 10 years – Market Insider Fed cuts rates again, telegraphs more rate cuts by year end (another .25 basis points) – Yahoo Is Your Money Feeding Global Warming?: Money is the oxygen
A generally positive day across Asian risk markets with a good response to the latest Federal Reserve cut, as the USD continued its gains against most of the majors. The Australian dollar tanked on the rise in unemployment which buoyed the local stock market, and this afternoon the BOJ held to its course, sending Yen
The Australian dollar has resumed its great sink today as bank and market observers pile in for rate cuts: Bonds are on fire: Stocks too: Dalian is weak: But nobody cares as Big Iron reaches for the skies. FMG hilarity! And Big Gas for that matter: Big Gold is forgotten though at least its AUD
From Roy Morgan Research: In August, Australians expected annual inflation of 3.9% over the next two years. This is down 0.2% on July and down 0.4% on a year ago in August 2018. Analysing Inflation Expectations by gender and age compared to a year ago shows the biggest declines have been for women of all
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: The Fed delivered a “hawkish” easing this morning, cutting the Fed funds rate by 25bps to 1.75-2%, and the interest rate on excess reserves by 30bps to 1.8%. Importantly, officials reiterated their “median” guidance for no more rate cuts this year. Interestingly, there were three dissenters –
This is what Australians are up against. The nation’s leading business paper has completely lost faith in its own system. From the AFR editorial: …where we really part company with Washington is that we don’t accept that China is a strategic competitor that must be contained. Mr Morrison has instead revived the Menzian formula of
Recently, average CEO pay packets in the top 100 Australian companies surpassed $5 million, according to research from The Australia Institute: Now, the latest CEO pay report from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) shows that Australia’s top earning CEOs were paid 280-times the average Australian full-time salary of $85,000, which ACSI describes as “a
God save me from Juwai, via AFR: Property portal Juwai’s new survey of Chinese consumers found that 27 per cent of mainland Chinese tourists planned to look at properties over the next year as part of their travels, and that Australia was their No.1 destination to go shopping. Brisbane came in third and the Gold
As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for August, which registered a 34,700 increase in total employment but an increase in the headline unemployment rate (from 5.2% to 5.3%) due to a 0.09% increase in labour force participation. However, the underemployment rate rose by 0.2% in seasonally
Adam Boyton, chief economist of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), has penned a spurious article claiming that mass immigration will prevent the Australian economy from experiencing the economic declines experienced in places like Japan and Europe: One difference between the US on the one hand and the eurozone and Japan on the other is
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 2.9% decline in the final national auction clearance rate to 72.8% – well above the same weekend last year (51.8%) and also above last week’s 72.3%: As you can see,
Statistics New Zealand has released national accounts figures for the June quarter of 2019, with Gross domestic product (GDP) rising by 0.5% over the quarter. Between the June quarter of 2018 and the latest June quarter GDP rose 2.1%, which was the slowest rate since December 2013. As shown below, services drove the GDP growth,
