Macro Afternoon

By in Australian Dollar, Australian Property

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See the latest Australian dollar analysis here:

Macro Afternoon

Kayaking in the Cook Islands, 2019: Photo by H. Becker

Stock markets are largely higher across Asia but there more buying exhaustion is setting in as risk takes a break tonight for the US thanksgiving holiday. Bitcoin has finally tripped up, falling 6% so far today to be well below $18000 while gold remains at its new monthly lows, barely hovering above the $1800USD per ounce level:

The Shanghai Composite is floating along not doing much today, currently at 3365 points while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index its still a case of treading water with a minor lift of 0.2% to 26727 points. Japanese stock markets continue to surge higher however with the Nikkei 225 up 0.9% to 26537 points while the USDJPY pair has just holding on here after its recent surge but continues to stall out here at the 104.50 mid level:

The ASX200 was the odd one out, falling over 0.7% to close at the 6636 point level while the Australian dollar has tried and failed to make a new session high, coming up against staunch resistance at the 73.70 level once more – will it break?

Eurostoxx and S&P futures are up slightly with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 floating along given that trade tonight will be closed due to the SuperSpreader holiday across the nation. Support at the key psychological 3600 point level remains firm:

The economic calendar includes the latest FOMC minutes, German consumer confidence and the ECB meeting minutes to boot.

 

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Comments

  1. ColinMEMBER

    “Year by year the cost of living increases, and wages, if they move at all, move laggingly, and after desperate and embittered strife. Day by day the money-masters of America become more aware of their danger, they draw together, they grow more class-conscious, more aggressive. The [first world] war has taught them the possibilities of propaganda; it has accustomed them to the idea of enormous campaigns which sway the minds of millions and make them pliable to any purpose.
    American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures and assemblies to keep them from doing the people’s will and protecting the people’s interests; it was the exploiter entrenching himself in power, it was financial autocracy undermining and destroying political democracy.” – Upton Sinclair

    • Ronin8317MEMBER

      By using a double negative in a sentence, she just lost the votes from the grammar police who are outraged at the incorrect use of grammar. Everyone have such a low expectation of politicians they no longer care.

      • happy valleyMEMBER

        Yep, exactly – like ScoMo and his federal crew, she and her NSW crew are just rubbing our faces in it. Their contempt for us, the great unwashed voters, is truly gold standard at the federal and NSW level.

        • The Traveling Wilbur

          Yep. The last Fed election was the signal to the Libs they can keep being handed power as long as they keep the bribes coming (no matter how small). And now they not only know it (they did NOT beforehand), they are playing to it. Especially any time SCOMO gets near a microphone. Makes me sick.

          • happy valleyMEMBER

            Likewise. For many years, I blindingly voted LP but have realised that the LP starting with Howard (to my mind, the PM most responsible for Straya’s legacy of inequities) are the true leaners and that I have been paying every hour I have worked for years now for some of their grossest inequities. Unfortunately, I am now essentially disenfranchised as the Opposition is MIA/compliant and I am confronted with the real prospect of ScoMo and crew having control of both houses which would be a more deplorable and dangerous outcome than even when Howard had it. Vale democracy?

          • GunnamattaMEMBER

            @happy valley

            What you say there is essentially my sentiment. I have never voted Liberal and have loathed them since a kid.

            But Howard is the PM who is at the core of Australia’s disintegration of self respect, the core of its economic disintegration, and the core of the dilution of a once envisaged Australia which was tolerant, egalitarian, fundamentally fairly straight, and genuinely was prepared to have a go (as tarnished as that expression is). Howard – and the Liberals – is at the core of the complete sellout of straightforward honest Australians.

            That said the ALP gave up the game once Keating left parliament, and that ‘small target’ strategy they decided for Kim Beazley in 1998 has metastasized to be the backdrop of the way the public see them today. They are a small party which just happens to be the largest mainstream party in Australia. One gets the feeling they love their electoral and political impotence the way they love the way economic blindness and the outsourcing of legitimate opinion frees them from responsibility.

          • Wing Nut

            I can’t find a kind word to say about ScrotMo. Have even less kind words for the 66% of voters who think he’s doing a good job.

          • happy valleyMEMBER

            @gunna and everybody else
            Resurrected last night for me, the seminal article on Howard – SMH on 17 March 2017 by Crispin Hull titled “Australia still plagued by destructive policies of John Howard, our worst Prime Minister” … potentially, he’ll look like a saint compared to ScoMo?

    • blacktwin997MEMBER

      Phrases that sh!t me;

      Tickle from the top
      Soup to nuts
      Beach head project
      Negative growth
      Chinese characteristics
      Right honourable

  5. NikoMEMBER

    Gold’s been trying to break through $1810 all day and sellers keep pushing it down. If it hits $1813/14 it will stay above $1810 and will start chasing $1820.
    But if it fails to breach those barriers then 17 handle will be in sight.

      • NikoMEMBER

        We may see once in a lifetime set up with gold and copper. Normally one goes up the other goes down and that was the NCM’s curse. If I am right and both AU and Cu go up in this cycle then NCM will be the new Tesla in terms of share price performance and bonus will be real revenue and real dividends.

      • NikoMEMBER

        $1816 now.. I think it broke through and this could be the signal of what’s coming when US opens. We’ll find out soon. I am just trying to read the action and have no idea if I am reading it right.

        • ColinMEMBER

          US hours can be lucrative but not for me anymore. I programmed alerts, but I don’t like being woken when it triggers now either, & I don’t trust it to go full ‘Bot. So up the TF’s & swinging like Reusa for me.

  6. [email protected]

    Anyone ever done (or at least eaten) pickled tomatoes before?

    My plants are producing way more than can be consumed and found a recipe online for “Russian pickled tomatoes” but the recipe only uses salt in the brine and I was a bit sceptical on that and made a classic brine using vinegar and sugar as well. Just not sure on what to expect on taste and not sure how my brine change may change the end result. Need to get more pickling jars, so many tomatoes lol

  8. [email protected]

    The whole dole system is a complete rort (stating the obvious, I know).

    Just had my JSA contact ringing me again and leaving a message trying to find out “how work is going”. I’m not on the dole, haven’t been since early September and yet they ring every week because they’re trying to clip the ticket. I got the job myself, they were zero help, and they have no idea where it is and are desperate to find out so they can try and claim they got me the job. The system is so broken and such a waste of money.

    • Wing Nut

      Both up another fail for privatisation. Wonder which Liberal Minister quietly benefitted from flogging off these services for a few trinkets and a board position.

      • Ronin8317MEMBER

        The judge didn’t specify exactly what she wants to do, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is whether it’ll end up in the US Supreme Court before the Dec 14th deadline.

        • GramusMEMBER

          It won’t because it is bullsh*t.
          The claim is that all mail in votes in PA are illegal because the PA legislature lacked the constitutional authority to pass the law that allowed it. Rediculous stuff.
          It is a little theatre to feed to the rubes so they keep donating to Donny’s legal defence (post election slush) fund.

          • Rorke's DriftMEMBER

            Gramus, there are multiple issues, but that one is very clear under the constitution. Only the PA legislature can set the rules. What happened was the PA governor and executive changed the election rules on mail-in ballots without the authority to do so, presumably to favour democrats. That one is black and a white, simple straightforward interpretation of the constitution. The issue is that only the US supreme court will have the guts to overturn results, lower courts wont, so the question is whether there is enough time to appeal up through the lower courts, not the constitutional question itself, the US Supreme Court will almost certainly rule out the mail-ins.

          • GramusMEMBER

            @Rourkes Drift
            Wrong
            Even the republican PA legislature have asked for the case to be dsmissed.
            https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2020/11/25/pennsylvania-vote-election-certification-sean-parnell-mike-kelly-commonwealth-court-appeal/stories/202011250159?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1606327659

            In their suit, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Parnell are arguing that state lawmakers violated Pennsylvania’s Constitution by adopting Act 77 last year, which expanded the mail-in balloting option to let all qualified voters to vote by mail without an excuse. They allege that absentee voting — which required an excuse from a set of allowed reasons — was rebranded as no-excuse mail-in voting “absent any constitutional authority.”

            The Republican-controlled state Legislature responded, in legal filings, that the case should be dismissed because Act 77 didn’t alter the requirements of who constitutes a qualified voter, and that the Legislature is constitutionally authorized to prescribe the method by which those electors may cast their votes.

            Lawyers for the state and governor noted that Act 77 said all constitutional challenges were to be brought within 180 days of effective date, which “came and went without any facial challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77’s provisions.”

            “At no time during the 180-day period, the run-up to the primary election, or the runup to the general election did Petitioners (or anyone else) claim in any proceeding that Act 77 was unconstitutional on its fact,” the state’s lawyers wrote, noting that Mr. Kelly and Mr. Parnell ran in the 2020 primary and general election, “presumably garnering votes cast on the same mail-in ballots that they now claim to be unconstitutional.”

          • CarlosMEMBER

            …… and the mail in law was passed by GOP legislators 2 yrs ago, and has been used in 2 elections.
            Hilarious and dumb as

  12. The Traveling Wilbur

    I just saw an ad for a semi-decent gamer laptop for under a $1000.00. A Hardly Normal ad.

    WTF?

  13. Hugh PavletichMEMBER

    NEW ZEALAND HOUSING MORTGAGES: RESPONSIBLE IMPOSITION OF DEBT TO INCOME RATIOS (DTI’s) …

    Central Bank of Ireland 3.5 times … Bank of England 4.5 times

    Locally … ASB Bank and ANZ Bank recently introduced 6.0 times DTI’s.

    RBNZ will likely follow

    Central and local government must deal with land supply and infrastructure debt financing to allow new housing to be built under these caps … so that the construction industry can ramping up increasingly affordable new housing …

    Reserve Bank wants to introduce debt to income ratios in New Zealand – Governor Adrian Orr … Radio New Zealand / Newshub

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/11/reserve-bank-wants-to-introduce-debt-to-income-ratios-in-new-zealand-governor-adrian-orr.html

    … extract …

    … Debt to income ratios

    (Reserve Bank Governor Adrian) Orr said the RBNZ wanted to introduce debt to income ratios.

    A debt to income ratio means the amount people can borrow is proportionally related to their income.

    The bank was “dusting off the research” on the ratios, Orr said.

    “Yes, would be the simple answer, if we are trying to have effective tools that can head off excessive borrowing then a debt to income ratio is one of those.

    “They are relatively common internationally and they are used to head off people – for example, with interest rates so low, servicing a loan is easier, that is the purpose of a low-interest rate.

    “But that means the stock of debt being taken on becomes a risk because for example if you don’t have a job it doesn’t matter what the interest rate level is, you can’t service a loan and it becomes bad debt and that becomes a non-performing loan for the financial institutions and so on and so forth.

    “So this [debt to income ratios] puts a limit to it.” … read more via hyperlink above …
    .
    .
    … Recent opinion by Daniel Dunkley of Stuff NZ …

    How much debt is too much for Kiwi households to bear? … OPINION Daniel Dunkley … Stuff NZ

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300155588/how-much-debt-is-too-much-for-kiwi-households-to-bear

  16. Popcod

    Dom asked me for tips on any miners I liked after I mentioned CHN. Well I think VML for rare earths is good. They have a strategy to bring to production in a way that should not be extremely shareholder dilutive and won’t be too capital intensive, have a lot of ex Lynas and NTU executives, should start producing in Canada next year and have potentially 2 world class projects. They seem to be going about things in a smart way, and mgmt and directors own 12%. The stock is definitely in an uptrend and today just popped right out of a pull back (so I’d wait a bit, this stock goes up and down quite nicely). Do your own research but I think medium term this could perform nicely. There are over 2bn shares issued and they’ll probably need to do at least one more capital raise but I think they should be producing rare earths soon (1-2 years) if things go as planned.

    • happy valleyMEMBER

      Agree. Have gone off Grant Williams a bit as it seems to be a love-in with everyone he has on and it’s just going over the same old, same old?

    • Arthur Dukakis

      I doubt the number of road deaths from delivery drivers is any different from the general population on a distance-travelled basis.

      • ram

        This, and consider that it would likely citizens in harm’s way if they were given anything more substantial than a pushbike or postiebike to deliver your slave food.