The drums of war are surrounding Taiwan. Much of it is still the kind of Cold War jousting one would expect yet its tenor is pretty intense: China launched 25 military jets into Tawainese airspace yesterday after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned it for being “increasingly aggressive”. It is the largest incursion in a
Here it is all over again. The Morrison Government unprocess of government. Stack a honey pot with your mates, bully sheilas out of the way, and muzzle the joint for political purposes: The Australian Post board consisted of seven of eight board seats occupied by Coalition cronies feasting on the taxpayer teat. None had any
Here’s what the RBA said at its last meeting: The Board remains committed to the 3-year government bond yield target of 10 basis points. Later in the year it will consider whether to retain the April 2024 bond as the target bond or to shift to the next maturity. The initial $100 billion government bond
Via FTAlphaville: Since the turn of the month, markets have been quiet. Almost too quiet you might say. After several percentage point gyrations in the key indices over March as new data flowed daily on vaccination rates, Covid case levels and US fiscal stimulus, everything seemed to calm down. Hell, even the VIX has dipped
The NAB survey is out and has finally taken on the shape of a catch-up boom proper: Business conditions rose to a record high in March, driven by strong increases in all subcomponents – which are all now also all at record highs. The strength in conditions is evident across all states and industries. Forward
I have to write this story every few years. Whenever we have a positive iron ore cycle, investors make the same old mistakes. In particular, they assume that the mining cycle of plumped-up dividends is sustainable: SMSFs have gone shorter banks for fear of lower dividends. They have rotated to miners for higher dividends. The
Via CoreLogic’s weekly leading indicators. Credit is easing seasonally but is still very high for the owner-occupiers driving the boom: There are some signs of life for fresh for sale inventory but the stock is still painfully low: More price gains over winter on this data. Full report.
The Morrison Government’s “gas-led recovery” has been rubbish from the outset. It was a fix, not a policy process. Nobody is going to accuse me of being anti-gas. I’ve been campaigning for more of it for two decades. But, instead of undertaking consider economic process to extract more of it, the Morrison Government has butchered
Some folks just never learn. The fake left for instance: The Greens are ramping up a campaign to increase family visas. They would like to accelerate the entrance of 200k extra visas. The current system is “unfair”. The question is, unfair to whom? Is it unfair to the migrants who knew that were leaving behind
Via the ANZ: ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence: The receding of the Brisbane lockdown and announcement of the Trans-Tasman travel bubble has seen confidence jump sharply, to above its long-run average and the highest level since late 2019. #ausecon @DavidPlank12 @roymorganonline pic.twitter.com/KMBwNukvwR — ANZ_Research (@ANZ_Research) April 12, 2021 Good, but let’s face it, these intermittent
Australians need a vaccine for Morrison Government lies. The rollout of the vaccine is getting worse not better but according to our lying PM it’s keeping us on pace with everybody else: Morrison said Australia’s rollout is “keeping pace” with everybody else. We don’t need to keep up because we “are different” and have “no
The ferrous complex bifurcated violently yesterday as Chinese premier Li Keqiang stuck his foot in his mouth. Spot iron was firm. Paper soared overnight. But steel was caned: The driver was the release of this tidbit: “Overall economy and operation of enterprises have continued to recover, but surging international commodity prices have brought great pressure
New yuan loans were out last night and, as expected, China has hit the brakes. Total social financing came in at 34ootr yuan with banks at 2730tr yuan of that: The pop in shadow credit is receding: The flow of new credit was down by over one-third year over year: The rolling annual smooths that
It was an evening of paralysis for the Australian dollar as markets wait for key US data. The same goes for DXY: The Australian dollar was overall weak versus developed markets: Westpac has the data wrap: Event Wrap FOMC member Bullard said that while it was too early to start taking about changing policy, and he would leave
I noted last week that the NSW Government had declared war on its Morrison Government Coalition cousin: “7.30 is a very good program, Leigh, a very good program, and we do get a lot of our information from you.” – NSW Health Minister @BradHazzard on where he gets information about the vaccine rollout. #abc730 @leighsales
Morgan Stanley with a note I very much agree with: Inventory draws and demand recovery have supported oil prices in recent months, but two factors are starting to take some wind out of the sails of this bullish thesis: Iranian exports and US drilling activity.We moderate our price forecast for 3Q and close our long
As much of the press tips into phony handwringing over house prices again, even as it relies entirely on the bubble for its only source of profit growth, Chris Joye is having none of it. He argues that: Property is the cheapest it has been in a very long time. Buyer incomes have been lifted
From the excellent Garth Aird, chief economist at CBA. Note that my own view is that a terms of trade shock is coming down the pipe to hose off the price and growth bullishness in 2022: The Australian economic recovery from the COVID‑19 recession has been a lot stronger and a lot faster than the
Nordea with the note: There was broad support for the ECB to increase the pace of its bond purchases, but that support may wane, as the economic situation improves. We continue to see moderately higher Euro-area bond yields ahead. The monetary policy account from the ECB’s March meeting indicated that there were no strong objections to the central
Paul Kelly was one of the last to join Team Australia versus China. But he’s on board now: Last week’s combined push by the Morrison Government and the Business Council of Australia to diversify trade has created a new anti-China consensus. The CCP’s economic coercion will intensify. Team Australia plans to counter this with a
Deloitte looks ahead. A bit too bullish for me but right in terms of trend: We assume that (1) virus numbers stay suppressed as vaccine logistics steadily improve, so state borders remain mostly open and domestic restrictions gradually ease as vaccines roll out, (2) vaccines achieve the equivalent of herd immunity by late 2021/early 2022,
Let’s pick up the ongoing debate over what kind of market cycle this is. Readers will know I have been juggling three narratives to explain the ongoing market boom as it confronts an economic boom: Bad news is good news meaning the ongoing deflation (after a brief spike) will ensure asset prices outperform the economy.
The ferrous complex was strong last week as Chinese steel prices soared on the back of the steel output cuts. This is the paradox of central planning aimed at lowering input prices. Less steel means higher prices and any lower need for iron ore is more than offset by a stronger impulse to restock raw
Australia’s vaccine debacle continues today. The latest leaderboard has us leapfrogging Lebanon and Sri Lanka closing in on the West Indies! But, if you’re a sinking prime minister, you can always manipulate the data: So, the starting point in the race is not when the gun goes off, it’s when you got up after falling
There have not been many who have dared make the comparison between CCP China and Nazi Germany. Both are fascist states governed economically by central planning. Both rely upon ethnic eugenics for political legitimacy. Both are incrementally expansionist to attack competing liberal democracies. Both use powerful economies to buy off and silence opponents. Both are
The Australian dollar broke into the 75s again Friday night before rebounding. DXY rebounded and EUR fell with all of the usual outcomes. To the charts. DXY versus EUR: The Australian dollar is forming new downtrends against all of the major forex pairs. Not a good sign: It is more mixed against EMs but even
Bill Evans at Westpac: …the loan approvals to investors account for around 32% of the total housing loans (including all owner occupiers) compared to 65% in 2017 when APRA introduced a range of controls aimed at curtailing investor activity. On the other hand the Bank points out the solid starting point that will support the
Desperate to appear to be doing something, the Morrison Government has moved quickly to do nothing. Its latest unsolution is for Australia’s gigantic 2021 vaccine supply hole: The Morrison Government has secured an additional 20m doses of Pfizer vaccine. Sadly, they won’t arrive until Q4 this year. The second point means that the new doses
We have noted a few times recently that the US economy faces a hiccup later this year and early next as its fiscal stimulus growth pulse crashes with year-on-year comparisons. This goes to the often overlooked fact that when it comes to GDP growth inputs, it is the rate of change in spending that matters
From the RBA today: The pandemic has accelerated structural change and so has added to strains for retail commercial property Retail commercial property in Australia was already facing a challenging environment prior to the pandemic. The margins of retailers, particularly bricks-and-mortar retailers for discretionary goods, were being compressed by intense competition from both large international
