Via Paul Kelly: When a parliament is discredited the presiding government usually pays a fatal price. The current parliament is discredited and dysfunctional on fiscal, legal and symbolic grounds, our democracy continues to be damaged and the decline in trust in our institutions is intensifying. Just as the Tony Abbott-led opposition in 2010-13 was pivotal
DXY fell Friday night: AUD was up against DMs: But down against EMs: Gold was up a bit: Brent roared as the US rig count fell: Base metals were mixed: EM stocks firmed: High yield was mixed: Big miners stable: US yield edged up: Not European: Stocks edged down: The White House conflict is over
From Interest: The Labour Party’s rise and the Green Party’s fall from grace has been reflected in the second major poll since Jacinda Ardern and Metiria Turei’s diverging fortunes caught political attention in recent weeks. The latest 1 News Colmar Brunton poll alarmingly shows the Greens at 4.3% – below the 5% threshold needed to enter Parliament
Via Westpac: PulseAugust2017 ― Getting a precise fix on Australia’s housing markets remains tricky. Sentiment and lead indicators continue to point to a material slowdown and turnover is showing a renewed decline. However the picture around price growth is much less clear cut, with some moderation overall but trends varying greatly across capital cities –
Via CoreLogic: Preliminary clearance rate increases to 71.7 per cent, while auction volumes remain steady This week across the combined capital cities, the preliminary auction clearance rate rose to 71.7 per cent, up from last week when the final clearance rate fell to 67.5 per cent. There were 2,041 capital city auctions this week, virtually
Dalian has tried but largely failed to blow off again today: Big Iron is down: Big Gas too. ORG is showing promise, and why wouldn’t it, so long as you don’t mind stealing from pensioners: Big Gold is mixed and I’m still a seller here. North Korea is a non issue and the ECB is
From Domainfax: Nick Xenophon will let the High Court decide his fate if it is confirmed he is a dual citizen, with the key Senate crossbencher determined to dig in and not resign from the Senate. Senator Xenophon is urgently seeking clarification from the British Home Office over his citizenship status after questions were raised about his father’s nationality.
It think we can call this brand damage, via The Australian: Six transactions by five customers made through Commonwealth Bank’s intelligent deposit ATMs may have financed terrorism, Austrac has alleged. …Mr Clark said prosecution was “not something we take lightly”. …Asked whether the allegations listed in the 600-page statement of claim against CBA werer exhaustive,
Chinese house prices are slowing. The month on month gain in July was 0.4% and year on year was down to 9.4%: Top tier cities are sinking swiftly towards zero while lower tier growth is easing off: The number of cities with falling prices rose to 14 out of 70 and is slowly trending up:
Check this out from SBS’s The Feed: Not funny. Sad. Here’s what Dick Smith has had to say about the SBS attacks on him: And, most ironically, the launch of his recent report into the role that population growth is playing in inflating away the fulfillment of Australian youth’s most basic need: a roof over their heads:
Via Macquarie: China’s latest macro-release this week gave an ambiguous picture on the health of the economy. Conflicting signals from June and July numbers, between macro and micro data, and with respect to liquidity vs money supply are just some of the issues. We see the property market slowing in 2H but FAI picking
Via NAB forex: The positive outlook that we have identified in the recent months has shifted to a new level upon the July breakout close above key resistance levels. Both price and momentum triggers remain positive at a LT level. Recent negative price and ST/MT momentum triggers highlight risk of a further correction towards 0.7710/30.
A good piece from The Australian today by Roger Wilkins who is a former secretary of the federal Attorney-General’s Department: On a literal interpretation of section 44, it seems pretty clear that Joyce was not qualified to be elected. He was a citizen of a “foreign power”: New Zealand. The section says the “citizen of a
Via UBS: Reporting Season Progress Report Underwhelming Guidance Sees FY18 Estimates Crimped So far 73 members of the ASX200 have officially reported (47 large caps and 26 small caps). This represents c40% of ASX200 companies due to report in August though large-cap reporting season has now edged past the half way mark. Overall we believe
Iron ore price charts for August 17: Tianjin benchmark rocked nearly 6% to $75.70. Paper calmed overnight. Steel lagged. Coals are pouring it on. This is a terms of trade bonanza for Australia right now.
DXY held small gains last night: The Aussie fell against DMs: And was mixed against EMs: Gold signaled more risk for USD weakness: Brent held on: Base metals unwound the hysteria a little: EM stocks took a hit: US high yield did too. EM was better: US yields fell sharply: Europe a little less: Stocks
Via The Australian: Malcolm Turnbull is facing an escalating Labor attack over the stability of his government after a third cabinet minister owned up to being a dual citizen by descent, shocking observers with another test in the High Court that could reshape the ministry. Nationals deputy leader and Regional Affairs Minister Fiona Nash last
Via Reuters: The federal government is pushing ahead with its expansion of the anti-money laundering (AML) regime, with the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC set to receive additional powers. The government unveiled changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 yesterday, which will also bring digital currency providers within the AML regime. Michael Keenan,
Charlene Chu at Autonomous Research is making waves at the FT today: Corporate investigator Violet Ho never put a lot of faith in the bad loan numbers reported by China’s banks: crisscrossing provinces from Shandong to Xinjiang, she’s seen too much – from the shell game of moving assets between affiliated companies to disguise the true
From the NOAA: The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for July 2017 was the second highest for the month of July in the NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back 138-years to 1880. The year-to-date global temperature was also second warmest on record. This monthly summary, developed by scientists at NOAA’s
Bloody Pauline: One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson arrived in Senate question time dressed in a burka, a form of Islamic dress with a face covering. …“In light of the national security of this nation will you work to ban the burka in Australia,” she asked Attorney-General George Brandis. Senator Brandis said: “No”. Earlier someone in
Via The Guardian: White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has given an unusual interview in which he claimed there was no military solution for North Korea, the far right was a “collection of clowns” and the left’s focus on racism would allow him to “crush the Democrats”. Bannon, who has been called the mastermind behind Donald Trump’s nationalist
The commodity pain trade is roaring upwards today with iron ore off the hook up 6%: Big Iron is pretty circumspect about it: Big Gas is weak, notably so when one reads all of the positive guff coming from brokers: Big Gold is hot as it signals more USD weakness. I am a seller here
It’s still a long shot but worthy of consideration, from RBC: With an already precarious one-seat majority, the Liberal-National Coalition government risks turning into a minority government should the High Court uphold Section 44 of the Constitution and rule the current Deputy PM and leader of the National Party ineligible for Parliament. There must also be
July jobs are out from the ABS and it’s a mixed bag: Employment increased 27,900 to 12,201,400. Full-time employment decreased 20,300 to 8,342,300 and part-time employment increased 48,200 to 3,859,10 Unemployment increased 1,100 to 730,600. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 3,800 to 496,400 and the number of unemployed persons only
