Macro Afternoon

By in Australian Dollar, Australian Shares

| 138 comments

See the latest Australian dollar analysis here:

Macro Afternoon

Some solid gains to finish the week on Asian share markets with risk sentiment firming following last night’s late rebound on Wall Street. The USD remains strong against most of the undollars, with the Australian dollar hovering around the 69 cent level. Oil prices are trying to stabilise but are ending up drifting sideways, with Brent crude just above the $110USD per barrel level while gold is still depressed at the $1824USD per ounce level. Interestingly, the four hourly chart of Bitcoin is looking very similar to that of the S&P500 (see bottom of report) – is this the actual bottom?

Mainland Chinese share markets are again accelerating into the close with the Shanghai Composite up more than 0.8% to 3347 points while the Hang Seng Index has gained nearly 1.6%, currently at 21641 points. Japanese stock markets however are playing catchup after their previous scratch sessions with the Nikkei 225 index about to close more than 1.2% higher at 26501 points while the USDJPY pair has continued its overnight drop, now below the 135 handle after failing to stabilise after its early week breakout:

Australian stocks were able to put in modest gains, with the ASX200 about to finish nearly 0.8% higher at 6575 points. The Australian dollar is trying to find a bottom here, having been depressed below the 69 cent level against USD in the second half of the week:

Eurostoxx and Wall Street futures are pushing higher going into the European open, with the S&P500 four hourly futures chart showing price action no longer anchored above the 3700 point level as it now begins to threaten the May lows (lower horizontal black line) that have acted as firm resistance, with a bullish inverse head and shoulders pattern almost complete:

The economic calendar includes the closely watched German IFO survey, then the US Michigan consumer sentiment print.

Have a good weekend!

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Comments

      • boomengineeringMEMBER

        Even worse rubbish. Normal flu, some doc wants it to be treated like Covid, masks, lockdowns, etc.

        • reusachtigeMEMBER

          Execute the fckers trying to control our every move like those evil carnts! I’m never wearing a mask properly ever again and I’ll erase any fckr that tries to make me wear one including cops!! When I see a mask wearer I see a gutless prick, or an Asian. I’m no chinamen!!

        • Swampy

          Nyleta posted some links that clearly demonstrate this is not the case

          Just because it doesn’t suit your desires/ideology doesn’t make it so

          • [email protected]

            Here’s a challenge Reus.

            Justify your existence.
            I’m happy if you provide the answer from the point of view of the character or as the person behind the character as I feel either way you won’t answer as you’re a soulless grub or it’ll just be a bunch of piddle because you’re a soulless grub
            Go on bud, have a crack, justify why you exist and why anyone should care.

          • The Traveling Wilbur

            This is why I should subscribe. This.

            Edit: you haven’t been trying to grow tomatoes recently by any chance?

          • [email protected]

            @TTW my garden is bumping bra, got fhe full winter veg selection going and some surprising toms and chillis still fruiting despite the cold chill. And a nice reminder to that dumb old real estate dingus that tried to tell me grass doesn’t grow in winter – the driveway and courtyard rehab is booming in the cold (the real challenge is trying to get the Kikuyu seeds in at the right time and then not drive on em!!)

          • The Traveling Wilbur

            👍

            (but I knew there would be tomatoes – they always make the growers angry)

            Edit: I’m about to get mandarins… they’re rippening in winter for their first ever crop. Truly weird but not complaining.

          • Swampy

            Tatar we had multiple crops of mandies inNNsw in2019 it was truly weird
            All at different times

          • SweeperMEMBER

            “LOLOLOL”

            Does anyone find this character play pantomime funny?
            Seeing through the whole thing it just seems weak.
            Own your views and you’re ability to support them / or don’t. But why express them and then kneecap yourself with the “entertainment” get out clause thing. I don’t see the point.

          • reusachtigeMEMBER

            AHAHAHA Labor supporters. Never met a good one. They are just not very nice people.

          • SweeperMEMBER

            “AHAHAHA Labor supporters. Never met a good one. They are just not very nice people”

            why even post that though. what’s the point?

    • [email protected]

      Tis just history repeating, we’ve been through this cycle before, it’s not always for the same reasons but there’s usually the same root causes. If you don’t know the causes, don’t worry, skippy will jam them down your throat sharpish.

      I miss when he at least used to occausonally interrupt his diatribes to tell us what meat he had on the grill. Skip is a decent home cook going off what he has posted.

      • The Travelling PhantomMEMBER

        Indeed, I find him more acceptable when he breaks away from that character of economics professor he wants to impress everyone with

          • The Travelling PhantomMEMBER

            I don’t see myself hanging around that long tbh
            I have a time in my mind when I’ll be leaving

          • The Travelling PhantomMEMBER

            ^^ I don’t know, there will be always a need for forum for like minded people
            This forum gathers patriotic, left leaning, high house prices haters, majority intelligent people, and they like to talk economics and shït

          • skippyMEMBER

            OK [email protected] …. let me see … oh yeah … so as a late teen I was in RIP [Ranger Indoctrination Program/filter] before getting into my respective Company, basically just an exercise to make people quit due to physical or mental excesses. Lmmao on one rainy day we did PT and everyone thought due to it we would get off light, no epic run in Jungle boots doing 7 min miles for about 6K and about 1hr of calisthenics. OMG it was so much worse, running up and down three flights of stairs with your buddy on your back, hundreds of push ups and sit ups and even more diabolical the flutter kick after it all … basically back to the ground … spread out like jebus … and legs 6″ off the ground and move legs like swimming up and down whilst not going beyond the 6″ off he ground. Its a 4 count exercise … try 200 of those puppies …

            Best bit was when I was at the end getting a wee bit puffed I had a haft African/native American spiting in my face from above to quit and when that did not work started doing star/jumping jacks over my head whilst singing YMCA …

          • [email protected]

            Also skip, I truly respect the seppo selection process, but pray tell oh master of the hard graft, how many days have you spent @ holsworthy in confinement? Oh that’s right, you haven’t, so you don’t know true sadism of the Oz MP, sure, try and compare your soft equivalent but I’ve heard from those in the know that there is no comparison. And after all old fella, all I did was try and compliment your cookin. Get nodded ya old fool

          • skippyMEMBER

            Grilled Quesadilla omelets made with red onion, red&green capsicum sliced thin, same for mushrooms, wee bit of smoked bacon, pickled jalapeno/red chili/garlic [homemade] on top w/ jack cheese on top browned in the griller and dashed with arrbol and chipolata spices served with a Mexican slaw and sour cream …

          • skippyMEMBER

            “holsworthy in confinement” 3 squares and a bed and no one is shooting at you or given orders to march to the front … as it be … groan on the U.S. prison system [quasi private], look up pelican where guards ran a betting pool for inmate fights to the death …

      • skippyMEMBER

        Which is more important G.I. your map awareness or getting laid down range and paying for it ….

    • The Traveling Wilbur

      Police are looking into it.

      But are reporting they have yet to find any concrete evidence.

  7. [email protected]

    Been spending some time around Komatsu/Hitachi/CAT mining machines lately and it really blows my mind seeing up close how big and ridiculous these things are but also how many small, fragile, essential parts keep them moving.

    • boomengineeringMEMBER

      One machine that blew my mind was a rolling machine at Transfield West Australia. It rolled 300mm thick x 2.5M flat hard steel plate into a cylinder. Had to fix something on it by memory

      • boomengineeringMEMBER

        Puts my hydraulic bending machine to shame. It only folds 25mm thick x 100mm wide.
        That sag mill we were installing at Lihir Island weighed 300ton empty.
        .
        Winning.
        Sounds interesting.
        What were you doing ?

        • [email protected]

          I’ve just been the logistics chump dropping off and picking up but have started to recognise the reality from the drawings in the workshop to what I’m seeing in the assembly yards. It’s pretty cool for a chump like me, learning about steel grades and welds and all that – I failed shop class in high school lol.

          Cool that you mentioned Lihir, that mob I was workin for a year or 2 ago was running logistics for that mine, was such a varied mix for 3PL, everything from pens and dunny roll to cummins diesel crate engines to bullet proof panels for Hiluxes.

    • DingwallMEMBER

      Nothing surprises me any more. Reliance on the Fed stepping in means FOMO still exists.
      Zombie companies need to die ……….. not get given life support every 6 months
      Gen Z etc needs to taught that sh!t goes down and sometimes vertically.

      • elasticMEMBER

        The zombies and the overleveraged need a kick in the pants. The only question is how long rates will stay elevated. A couple of years would sort them out

  11. Arthur Schopenhauer

    Bumped into a neighbor who ‘upgraded’ to a snazzier street at the start of the year. Was rather glum: “We bought at the very top.”

  13. 2023HomelessMEMBER

    Interesting anecdote from my realestate agent in Canberra today.

    The market is already down 10% since December, in her view, for upgraded homes. Maybe 5% on entry level homes. There are near nil people at home opens. And any buyer is 100k below seller expectations, even after dropping 10% from last years pricing.

    And yes I’m selling, house sold 90days ago and waiting to settle in a few weeks. Just praying the buyer doesn’t realise they would be better off walking away and losing the 10% deposit!

    It will take a while for the price falls to hit the quarterly statistics. Especially as falls are not in entry level homes yet. But the price adjustment on the ground are already larger than Core Logic suggests…

    • The Travelling PhantomMEMBER

      Interesting, melbourne still very strong (or at least the side of melbourne I’m in)
      Prices barely moved 10k down, in some cases I saw the ads adjusting prices by increasing the lower end of the qoute price

      • Swampy

        Let me know when Sandy Hampton Black rock and Beaumaris crash – that’s when it’s a proper drop

        • The Travelling PhantomMEMBER

          Will do so, I have a couple of jobs that side of the town will keep an eye on the number of open for inspection

        • Arthur Schopenhauer

          It’s staring in the leafy suburbs, but the numbers won’t show it for another quarter.

          There are still plenty of people that did very well during the great asset inflation.

          ‘Straya!

    • Swampy

      Colleague at auction today
      3 acres very nice 👌
      Pre auction unconditional offer circa 1.3
      Dropped out at that level at auction, only conditional offers bidding . Passed in 1.6

      Texted the agent who sold our place start 2020 (10 acres).
      “Vendors have not come to grips with market conditions yet”

    • RomulusMEMBER

      “ Those businesses going bust in Australia and customers who can’t pay their bills can think of the wonderful copper mines they are keeping running in Chile and the fact Shell are making a wonderful profit on this trade” Resources Minster Madeline King

    • ErmingtonPlumbingMEMBER

      Sounds like a good argument for seizure and Nationalisation.
      No compensation to shareholders

  15. 2023HomelessMEMBER

    ‘Is this the actual bottom?’ No

    While I could suggest many reasons why. The best I have is that it will be near the bottom when the bear market has a Main Street recognised label. (Like with the oil crisis, dot com, GFC etc). Until this event is labelled, it’s not even close to done.

      • skippyMEMBER

        Having been born in the early 60s in the U.S. and fleshed out with the scope of my family, broad experiences of living in different locations within different perspectives about socioeconomic/class related realities, associated with them, up too and post neoliberalism becoming dominate and post, I find the unfiltered history of the topic to be a better foundation for understanding it all than the dogmatic econometrics presented as – LAW – by orthodox economics during this period.

        Jebusonastick how the mind melts when someone like Samuelson is informed that one of his core axioms is not only wrong, but a complete fabrication, out of whole cloth, yet with all the evidence contrary to it he says … yeah naw … *** I prefer *** this ideological perspective ….

        All the polemic politics is just a side show to keep the unwashed weak and ignorant whilst more and more power is directed to the top income percentiles and you can kiss any notion of broad democracy or share of productivity good bye …

  17. The Traveling Wilbur

    Mr Albanese confirmed on ABC’s 7:30 on Thursday night that he would visit French President Emmanuel Macron, promising to strengthen relations

    This place has much to answer for.

    Having “Well, I suppose Emmanuel wasn’t bad.” stuck in your head for 35-years doesn’t help much either.

    • skippyMEMBER

      Really lays into the whole MBA driven aspect of inflation contra the fable about money printing …. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr thingy ………

    • dystopeon

      hey cool. Wolff’s getting popular.
      Reading Upton Sinclair got me interested in coops and Wolff’s work. I like his 30’s optimism for a new wave in America, it’s time.

  21. Hugh PavletichMEMBER

    Metals Haven’t Crashed This Hard Since the Great Recession … Mark Burton … Bloomberg

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-26/metal-prices-are-headed-for-the-worst-quarter-since-the-financial-crisis

    Prices for copper, tin and other metals plummeted last week as recession fears grow.

    Industrial metals are on track for the worst quarter since the 2008 financial crisis as prices are pummeled by recession worries. Copper, the great economic bellwether, has ricocheted into a bear market from a record four months ago, while tin just tumbled 21% in its worst week since a 1980s crisis froze London trading for four years.

    It’s a dramatic reversal from the past two years, when metals surged on a wave of post-lockdown optimism, inflationary predictions and supply snarls. Now, inflation is here and supplies are still tight. But prices are plummeting as worries about a slowdown in industrial activity across major economies dovetail with slumping demand in China.

    For a metal like copper, its uses in everything from heavy industrial machinery to advanced electronics mean the market is tightly linked to economic shifts, and the retreat marks a signal from commodity markets that efforts to get prices back under control are having some early successes. The mood in metals has soured even as Chinese Covid-19 lockdowns start to ease, and there are signs that traders there are betting copper prices will fall further. … read more via hyperlink above …

  22. Hugh PavletichMEMBER

    China …

    With Jobs Scarce, China’s Graduates Dream Small … Sixth Tone

    https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1010570/with-jobs-scarce%2C-chinas-graduates-dream-small?source=channel_home

    … via …

    Todays Breakfast Briefing

    G7 and BRICS meet to plot next moves; China’s jobs market gets grim; US PMIs soften; US petrol prices top out; NZ dives in liveability survey; UST 10yr 3.14%; gold and oil lower; NZ$1 = 63.1 USc; TWI-5 = 71.1 … Interest Co NZ

    https://www.interest.co.nz/business/116497/g7-and-brics-meet-plot-next-moves-chinas-jobs-market-gets-grim-us-pmis-soften-us

    … extracts …

    … In China, the sluggish economy is really putting the squeeze on job seekers. Their jobless rate for 16-24 year olds is now more than 18%, far above the high general jobless rate of almost 6%, which is also rising. (The equivalent NZ levels are 10.2% and 3.2%; for the US they are 10.4% and 3.6%.). …

    … Container shipping rates fell -3% last week alone for trans-pacific cargoes out of China. This is their biggest fall since when they came off their peak in September last year. Interestingly, rates from the US back to China are actually rising, against the trend. American imports seem to be shifting away from China, to a variety of ASEAN countries, especially Vietnam, and US exports are picking up. …
    .
    .
    THREE big LIES about CHINA that you have always been told – VisualPolitik EN … Youtube

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pop2xWQWEiM