Fixed mortgage rates have already ratcheted up, as illustrated in the next chart from CoreLogic: While not captured above, variable mortgage rates have also begun drifting higher following the RBA’s 0.25% hike in the cash rate earlier this month. Steve Mickenbecker from financial comparison site Canstar has warned that around half a million Australians could
Corelogic’s 2022 housing affordability report, released last week, showed that aspiring first home buyers are being squeezed hard by surging mortgage payments and rents. While the proportion of income required to service a mortgage remains below record highs, it has risen substantially over the past year across both the capital cities and regions: Moreover, the
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Bitcoin’s 50% crash erases all of Elon Musk’s gains on Tesla balance sheet – Fortune Saudi Aramco Posts Record Quarterly Profit on Surging Oil Prices – WSJ Global Prices Expected To Rise As India Bans Wheat Exports – Says Results of the week of the blockchain industry – Medium
Asian share markets have had a tepid response to the bounces on overseas markets from Friday night, with Chinese shares still spooked by the latest retail data showing the middle kingdom is slowing down appreciably. Currency markets remain constrained by a very strong USD with the Australian dollar reverting from its tiny fightback on Friday
Following Australia’s dive down Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index over the Coalition’s term: Australia has also plunged 14 places in one year in the World Press Freedom Index, from 25th place out of 180 to 39th place: Press freedom is fragile in this island-continent of 26 million people, where ultra-concentration of media ownership, combined with growing
Prosper Australia has released its 2022 Federal election scorecard, which compares their policy platforms against the major Lib/Lab duopoly. Prosper’s scorecard covers the following key areas of policy, ranked in order of importance: Tax reform – Here we are looking for policy that shifts economic activity from unproductive rent seeking. We are looking for tax
Westpac’s latest “Home Truths” report forecast a 10% decline in New Zealand house prices this year, followed by a further 5% fall in 2023: We previously expected a 10% peak-to-trough fall in prices over this year and the next; we now expect a total drop of 15%. We’ve also front-loaded the fall, with a 10%
Roy Morgan has released its inflation expectations survey for April, which shows that expectations fell 0.5% to 5.5% after fuel excise was cut by 22.5 cents in the March federal budget: In April 2022 Australians expected inflation of 5.5% annually over the next two years, down 0.3% points from March 2022. The level of Inflation
The National Farmers Federation (NFF) has issued a voting guide to rural electors, ranking the major parties against its 14 policy priorities for the 21 May election. The NFF has rated the Coalition ahead of Labor on 12 of them. The NFF is especially unhappy that Labor wants to scrap the recently introduced agriculture visa:
Labor leader Anthony Albanese continues to attract scrutiny over his push for the minimum wage to be increased in line with the inflation rate. The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) estimates that a 5.1% increase in the minimum wage would add about 2.25% to the inflation rate over the next 12 months. It would, therefore,
Calculated Risk does the analysis. CR was superb in the lead-up to the GFC (and ever since). Bill McBride is neither a rusted-on bull nor bear. If he is right then the Fed has more work to do. — It is clear that over the next year house price growth will slow from the torrid
The marvelous constituents of Goldstein are on the verge of one of the great acts of tough love in Australian political history: Leaked internal Liberal Party polling has confirmed the worst fears for Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and his high-profile colleague Tim Wilson, just days before they face voters. Obtained exclusively by 10 News First, the
The smartest guys in the room that have survived the last six months best are more not less bearish. BofA’s Michael Hartnett, who has been the maestro conductor of this crash, leads us off: The Way We Were: “Millennials are quitting jobs to become crypto day traders”, USAToday, Aug 12th 2021. The Biggest Picture: crash
The ferrous complex was mixed on May 13, 2022: Mysteel indexes are still very weak with steel overproduction very clear: Some of this will be export-driven though wider measures of that are also still weak. Most of it is just producing steel to keep idle hands busy so they don’t tear Beijing to pieces. CISA
Chinese COVID lockdowns are relentless: The economic fallout is brutal: The property market is a mess: On the weekend we also got April credit data. Much of what I read tried to put a brave face on it but the numbers are a disaster. Total social financing came in at a paltry 910bn yuan, less
PM Scott Morrison cheated in the last debate: A curious screenshot was sent to Diary at 9.12pm on Wednesday, as the final showdown between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese was starting. The reliable Liberal source claimed it was a list of the debate questions, which had been leaked to the Prime Minister’s office earlier that
Friday night finally saw a proper bounceback on stock markets after weeks of downside volatility with Chinese shares leading the way into the European session and then Wall Street taking over after desperately trying to find a bottom in the mid-week. While the latest US consumer sentiment figures disappointed, the Fed is still ready to
If you want to understand just how biased the Australian MSM is these days then look no further than the last week of political coverage. All of last week we heard uncritically of how inflationary would be a simple pay rise matching inflation for low income workers. That is, not even a real pay rise, just
Over recent months we witnessed the Coalition and Labor launch a raft of new “housing affordability” policies – from home loan guarantees to shared equity schemes – aimed at driving more first-time buyers into the housing market and propping up housing values. Yesterday, a desperate Scott Morrison announced that if re-elected, the Coalition would allow
DXY took a breather Friday night as risk dead cat bounced: AUD screetched higher: Oil too which is self-defeating, self-evidently: Not so much metals: Miners eked out gains: EM stocks and junk too: The Treasury curve steepened: Stocks roared: Westpac has the wrap: Event Wrap US consumer sentiment (Michigan University) disappointed at 59. (est. 64.0, prior
Freelance journalist Tarric Brooker has authored an interesting article estimating how forecast interest rate rate rises would compare with Australia’s historical experience. Rather than examining raw interest rate increases, Brooker has instead calculated the percentage change in mortgage interest repayments from the trough to the peak of the interest rate cycle. The analysis shows that
At the same time as Australia’s business groups are arguing for a real cut in the minimum wage, they are reportedly in a state of “despair over sluggish immigration flows”: Australia’s visa system needs an overhaul to accelerate skilled labour flows… Over the past decade, excluding 2021, permanent long-term visitor numbers averaged 162,000 during the
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Tesla, Twitter shares drop as Elon Musk’s legal issues grow – ABC The Meltdown of ‘stablecoin’ Terra shows an Urgent need for Regulation to Protect Consumers – Guardian Mag How More Than $1 Trillion of Crypto Vanished in Just Six Months – WSJ Stocks Trim Weekly Losses With Friday
Camden Haven ‘Dear MB friends, we hope you find the photos selected of some interest. Camino del Santiago from Saint Jean pied de Port in France to Burgos Spain. 15 days 370klms ‘ Geoff McVeigh Autumn leaves at Braidwood Butcher Bird with mince at Watson Ritualised Forms Queenscliff Pier sunrise
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Bitcoin’s plunge is hitting the little guy who got into crypto during COVID worst of all – Valkyrie Cryptofunds Twitter freezing hiring and cutting costs as execs depart – CNBC Ruble Surpasses Brazil’s Real as Year’s Best-Performing Currency – Yahoo Disney Plus added almost 8 million new subscribers as
