Macro Afternoon

By in Australian Dollar, Australian Shares

| 157 comments

See the latest Australian dollar analysis here:

Australian dollar parties as assets melt-up

Asian stocks have rebounded firmly across the region, in a correlated response to the bounce (aka BTFD) on Wall Street overnight as central bankers soothed nerves. Bitcoin is relatively stable, trading in a tight trading range again, currently hovering just above the $50K level with the four hourly chart showing the key $48 and $51 support and resistance levels going ahead:

The Shanghai Composite is up 0.6% going into the close, currently at 3585 points while the Hang Seng Index has bounced back, closing 1.6% higher to be back above 30000 points. Japanese markets saw a similar bid, with the Nikkei 225 taking back its previous losses to finish 1.6% higher at 30168 points as the USDJPY pair is slowly pushing up against the previous weekly high above the 106 handle:

The ASX200 was also able to clawback most of its previous losses, finishing 0.8% higher at 6834 points while the Australian dollar remains strongly bid above the 79 cents level against USD and ready to crack through the magical 80 handle later tonight:

Eurostoxx and S&P futures are tracking a lot higher before the European opening session with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 showing that decisive break above the downtrend line from last week’s high above 3950 points, which it needs to get back to soon to fill this very small and short term dip:

The economic calendar includes the US 4Q GDP estimate, durable goods orders for January and pending home sales data.

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Comments

  2. migtronixMEMBER

    MtGox

    Magic the Gathering online exchange. Ponzi or visionary?

    Don’t say why not both, it’s tired and true…

  4. MathiasMEMBER

    Everyone I know is just losing so much faith. I dont know what to tell them most days.

    Even the hard working people I know who do all they can to show an optimistic face are seeing nothing but slammed doors in there faces. People are downheartened and even with retraining, there’s nothing they can do about it.

    I find Im pulling away from people because its all starting to give me that suicide feeling. They just dont know any way out of this, no matter how hard they work.

    I think ultimately, its instability thats going to end up undoing all of this. People are just going to get fed up.

    I mentioned to a friend about the young guys living out of there Vans in Byron Bay. Instead of a house, I think he’s having serious considerations to buying himself his own liveable van. He just has no faith in the future.

    I just cant understand how there arent suicides coming out from all of this. Im pretty certain that Australias Suicide Data makes about as much sense as our Unemployment Data. Its manipulated, fake and bogus.

        • skippy

          That is a bastardization of what Darwin argued due to Spencer’s popularity … it did not last and he grew conservative in his view post popularity with the elitists of the day …

        • Inflation, infrastructure & commodities

          Why don’t you sell one of your bitcoins and invite some hot chicks over?

      • MathiasMEMBER

        Its only Darwins Law when Markets arent being manipulated.

        Migration is Manipulation. This ISNT NeoLiberalism its Market Control.

        • skippy

          You forward Spencer’s bastardized Lamarckian ideology which fails to reconcile the shared or cooperative opinion of what Darwin was banging on about … go figure the elites picked the former …

        • The Claw

          Its only Darwins Law when Markets arent being manipulated.

          Every market is an arbitrary human construct.
          What do you mean by manipulated?

    • Fishing72

      Mate you sound really, seriously, clinically depressed. I urge you to get some help. The majority of the world does not feel the way you do.

      Just remember that everything passes. If things seem insurmountable just hang on because the sun always rises and life can and will change for the better.

      Go live in a tent if money is bringing you down. Financial security as guarantee of happiness is a hoax. Set your heart free, stop worrying and change up until you feel happy. Nothing wrong with living out of a tent or a car as long as they are in a decent location. I did it for years and was literally the best time of my life.

      Focus on being happy and everything else will fall into place.

      Good luck.

        • LSWCHPMEMBER

          Whether angry or depressed, you keep going on and on about suicide. This post mentions it twice. I’ve seen more references to suicide in your posts over the last month or so than I have in every other post by every contributor on MB in the last ten years or so that I’ve been coming here.

          That’s what some people would consider to be an “indicator”.

          You seem like a thoughtful bloke with views worth listening to, but your focus on self-harm has obviously been noticed by me and others here and it’s not real good.

      • migtronixMEMBER

        The majority of the world would string you up by the nads for sucking oligarch d!ck – I’d direct them 💪

        • Fishing72

          Mate , Covid left the door to your office cage open and you’ve misinterpreted your accidental freedom as a personal accomplishment. You ain’t fit to be directing anything brother. Try getting your head around the fact that you’ve subjected yourself to the preceding year’s imprisonment in the first place.

          Choose your career , choose your consequences.

          • migtronixMEMBER

            Bwaaahaaahaahaa mate you don’t even have to foggiest idea of much value was added to my “industry” last year as we sat at home you dumb worthless can’t contribute sh!t fishtard

          • Fishing72

            And Migi ? You can get stomped Skippy
            You thirty-six year old curl headed fxg, blow me
            You don’t know me, you’re too rekt ,let go
            It’s over, nobody chooses to live in metro

      • MathiasMEMBER

        When you consider rents so ridiculous in this Country… and a vans what, $40k ? It makes a lot of sense to just ditch your rental apartment and just go for the van.

        If you factor in that housing is practically non-existent for the young in the short to medium term, then living in a van seems like a great idea.

        Just park it out bush, somewhere near a creek or a forest and Im sure life would be great.

        When you think about it seriously, its far cheaper then owning a house in this country.

        There’s really no future for the young. I’ve seen enough young die in this Country and quite frankly, Im sick of seeing it.

        The arrogant attitudes that exist in this Country are beyond belief.

        Im surprised a politician hasnt been assassinated.

        • Kolchak

          Mathias, I notice your comments. You’ve got your head screwed on right. There are people out there who feel like you. I do.
          I get angry too. If more people got angry like you maybe things wouldn’t have devolved the way they have. It really is a kind of evil.
          But just bear in mind that anger can be cancerous. The two greatest assets that exist are health and time. Don’t let anger rob you of both. The world needs sane moral people like you.

        • robert2013

          Mate you’re a legend. Every conversation is a chance to spread the word. We want to be a nation. The young must be taught to stand up for themselves.

    • Toby

      People on here gather because they think likeminded. Sometimes an echo chamber is not great. Sometimes you make friends for similar reasons. There are a whole lot of views out there. Sometimes it can help to turn off the news for a few days or stop reading MB for a while. Good luck. And if it really is seeming hopeless for a long time, I don’t say this lightly, talk to your GP. Not suggesting your feelings are not justified or irrational but if it is also something in your biochemistry GPs have processes, training, people or drugs that may help. It can be hard to see yourself properly from the inside sometimes. And yes a lot of people feel like you, you are not alone. Start a political party if you want. It could be a while until things change and you have got to try and be as happy as you can be in the interim.

    • WiZZ of Ozz

      Sounds like u and your mates need attude adjustments electric shock therapy to the brain and gulluvers should saffice

  5. DingwallMEMBER

    Powell needs to be hung, flayed, ridiculed, slapped, dipped in tar, feathered, drawn and quartered. Head needs to displayed on the bonnet of a Tesla.
    He is ensuring markets don’t turn rational.

        • skippy

          You know back in the day … not so far ago … people had to undergo some training before entering bids on exchanges … had to show some competency in understanding the gravity of making choices and how that could not only effect them but everyone else …. then it was opened up to day traders due to computational at home freedom …. Frickin Greenspan’s put and the dotcom Johns Laws level machinations and here we are … but freedoms and liberties …. am I right …

          • migtronixMEMBER

            If you’re not free to die freezing in your reasonably affordable house Texas, or free to pay for those that did by wearing the costs, are you even really a Libertardian?

          • bolstroodMEMBER

            A few years ago I met a Califorian anglican pastor ,
            when the conversation turned to Texas he opine”Sometimes I wish we could just sell Texas “

      • Sacha

        Good old dependable Skippy, can always be counted upon for some bankster deflection.
        Markets everywhere are FUBAR due to central bank intervention, but no, it’s the people’s fault.

        • skippy

          Good old simpletons can barely remember yesterday forget the decades of breathers that rolled back any FDR era policy and the Fed is staffed by quasi monetarists. BTW I thought banks were licensed by the State so ….

    • Freddy

      When you go all-in on a highly leveraged Wealth Effect policy, asset prices become the economy and must be protected.

      • DingwallMEMBER

        And here is me thinking he was actually supposed to help the economy, impacted businesses and people out of work…….

    • The fed broke it. Now, they own it.MEMBER

      Yep, Gamestop up 104% overnight. Everything is chasing momentum and fear off missing out, except one asset class, Gold and Gold miners.

  7. migtronixMEMBER

    Born down in a dead man’s town
    And the first kick I took was when I hit the ground
    You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much
    ‘Til you spend half your life just to cover up

    • SweeperMEMBER

      Same guy who believed the currency needed to float? which was a pre-condition for an independent CB which did nothing else but target inflation “goods and services standard”?

      “In this short paper I am going to ask whether we have returned to a Pigovian world, in
      which we do not have to worry about maintaining balance between aggregate demand
      and the supply capacity of the economy; and in which we therefore can safely leave
      monetary and fiscal policy to the mechanistic application of a couple of simple rules.
      For determining the money supply, in the place of the Gold Standard, we have a
      Goods and Services standard, within which interests rates are adjusted so that the rate
      of increase in a general price index is low and steady. The Goods and Services
      standard requires a floating exchange rate, which adjusts without intervention to the
      myriad factors affecting supply and demand for external currencies”

      I’d hazard a guess that we were never in a Pigovian world (where unemployment was caused by laziness or excessive wages).
      Instead a bunch of elites re-created the gold standard into a goods and services standard in the late 80s early 90s and inflicted 4 x decades of excess involuntary unemployment culminating in extreme inequality and zero interest rates.

      • skippy

        Some have always thought the 2% IR was a quasi gold standard gifted to the wealthy in order to end the hard money standard.

      • The Traveling Wilbur

        Unidirectional benefits of productivity gains.
        Bail-in the rich.
        Demonise the unfortunate.
        Privatisation of not-for-profit social services.
        WHO do you blame.

        Pick four.
        OK you can pick five if you like.

  9. migtronixMEMBER

    I don’t know about the rest of you but there isn’t a single software developer that ever wants to go back to an office. I’ve been getting offers all this year where first they talk about some office days then come back “consider fully remote” when I say nah

  10. footsore

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stimulus-checks-are-so-19th-century-give-americans-automatic-electronic-cash-11613101927?redirect=amp#click=https://t.co/X14yx3yIEU

    Mark Blyth wondering aloud why a government would send out checks when it has the ability to send out 1s and 0s. It’s almost as if every person should have an account with the Fed. That could make it possible to do QE for the peeps. And that would get rid of those pesky middle men in the trickle down model.

    • FUDINTHENUDMEMBER

      “Burry highlighted passages from the book about the recurrence of inflation throughout history, how it’s usually preceded by an economic boom and a spike in overnight fortunes, and how it leads to soaring crime, surging living costs, and poverty.”

      Was he talking about OZ property, perchance?

  14. happy valleyMEMBER

    Q&A stacked tonight with 3 Liberals – Mike Baird, Katie Allen and Jane Halton – just reaching for the remote to switch this rubbish off.

  17. Xylolfrei

    Media bargaining code has passed in to law with the support of the ALP. Looks like MB will have to cough up the cash for linking snippets of articles from the big media outlets. (Once Josh designates this site for not being partisan)

    I will not be voting ALP again after this.

  18. MathiasMEMBER

    Transport for NSW was targeted in a ‘very, very serious’ hack that struck businesses and agencies worldwide, a senior minister has revealed – https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/hacking/transport-for-nsw-affected-in-global-accellion-hack/news-story/b97689cf758b9c597a5c271644198d27

    – Driver’s licence databases, opal cards and medical records were not affected, Cyber Security NSW said
    – It comes after a top NSW bureaucrat revealed that up to 30,000 state residents still haven’t been informed their private information was compromised in a separate hacking incident last year that targeted Service NSW.

    So the most important piece of identification we have, our Driving License, COULD have been at risk to a Cyber-Hack in NSW.

    Unbelievable.

    We are also to assume that of all the attacks going on regarding ‘peoples data’, we are probably only being told about 5% of the attacks actually happening. Just like the attacks on our Medical Information, the attacks upon our Defence, the attacks upon our Parliament which werent that long ago.

    So basically, the Government, is no longer trustworthy to hold our information.

    • Freddy

      A decade ago I worked in a NSW govt IT dept and their legal dept ruled out storing sensitive data on an overseas-based cloud server. It had to be local and required strict security compliance. So much for that. Maybe a case of LNP cutting away red tape to make things more “efficient”.

    • Frostilicus

      Looking forward to the day when the “better managed in private hands” land registry ends up haxx0r3d. They don’t even need to steal the data, just silently modify/corrupt it.

          • footsore

            I’ll take the one from my high school chemistry book for 15c. The maths one for 25c. And, the one in Margaret Fulton’s cookbook for 7c. Is that portfolio diverse enough?

          • The Traveling Wilbur

            Mig’s referring to an ETF that tracks / is valued on DXY’s value, or, for some, straight USD.

            PS one of the very few things I’ve learned in conjunction with reading this blog is that the value of DXY goes *down* when world-wide growth kicks in. Not financial advice, this time might be different.

          • The Traveling Wilbur

            Sorry, early submit.

            … and is saying index as that’s more convenient than mucking round with currency conversion charges and physical fiat.

  22. DingwallMEMBER

    Charlie Munger quote of the Day

    “the investment banking profession will sell sh!t as long as sh!t can be sold.”

  26. Hugh PavletichMEMBER

    Goldman Sachs Says Urban Flight To Last For Years … Zerohedge

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/goldman-sachs-says-urban-flight-last-years

    Goldman Sachs expects the exodus from cities to weigh on shelter inflation. Goldman’s Jan Hatzius told clients that it could take years for urban vacancies to normalize.

    Hatzius’ note, titled “Inflation Signal, Healthcare Noise (Hill),” had some excellent commentary on the urban exodus, aligning with our thoughts from last July when we said city dwellers fleeing metro areas could last for the next 18-24 months. …

    … concluding …

    … Because of the social-economic chaos last summer across major metro areas, violent crime surging, and hybrid work trends due to the pandemic, the shift to suburbia will become more permanent. It will take people some time to realize that the economy will never return to pre-COVID times – a lot of structural changes have already happened in a short period.

  27. Hugh PavletichMEMBER

    New Zealand remote working trends … perspective from Vodafone …

    Time to unlock the power of the regions (Vodafone Business sponsored) … New Zealand Herald

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sponsored-stories/time-to-unlock-the-power-of-the-regions/T4LXAV44CS6WZXLAKPRTT34YQM/

    … extracts …

    … “With 48 per cent of people who worked from home in the June quarter not usually working at home, there’s increased scope for some roles to be based in more provincial areas, and will be something for business and decision makers to consider moving ahead,” he said. “Businesses were able to adapt and enable employees to continue working from a different location.”

    Vodafone has also seen what that means for New Zealand, says Baird: “It means we have to build and upgrade digital infrastructure across New Zealand, because data use increased by a whopping 56 per cent during 2020 as more Kiwis relied on mobile technology and digital services to work, live and play remotely. …

    … But it’s not just work life that’s gone online; entertainment and socialising has too. On Christmas and Boxing Day, Vodafone NZ customers streamed 1178 terabytes of data in just two days – equivalent to more than a million hours of video. It is 52 per cent more data than we used the previous Christmas. New Year’s Eve celebrations saw 80 per cent more data used by Vodafone customers, compared to 2019-2020.

    Throughout December as a whole, there was a 74 per cent year-on-year growth in data use on Vodafone’s 4G network and a tenfold increase in 5G in the last three months. … read more via hyperlink above …