Via ANZ: ANZ Roy Morgan index was down 1.2% last week, its second straight weekly loss – ensuring confidence remains below its long-run average. The financial conditions subindices were positive. Current finances gained 0.2%, while future finances were up 0.7%. These small gains coming after large falls last week. In contrast weakness
Via a sad and sorry CBA: Retail spending intentions have dipped while home buying intentions remain high, according to CBA’s latest research. CBA’s Chief Economist Michael Blythe has today confirmed that household spending intentions stumbled in September after the positive lead reported last month. Nonetheless, the series also highlights some underlying improvement in spending intentions
Via Vale: Rio de Janeiro, October 14th, 2019 – Vale S.A (“Vale”) iron ore fines production and sales had a significant increase in 3Q19, as a result of the continuous progress in the resumption of operations in the Southern and Southeastern Systems and also due to the strong operational performance and shipments normalization in the
Good stuff here from Martin North: This very much reminds me of the 2003 Sydney bust. The west continues to fall as the east rebounds. This will lead to stagnation in time as the “move up ladder” stalls with western households trapped in negative equity. The difference this time is that in 2003 Sydney was
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Our proprietary measure of the Australian credit impulse has picked up to 5.6% annualized in August, from 4.9% in July, and 4.6% in June. Importantly, the credit impulse is well off the lows we saw at the end of 2018. Indeed, the impulse is running at its
Texture from Reuters: Benchmark Dalian iron ore and coke futures slumped more than 2% in late trade on Monday following growing concerns about demand for the steelmaking raw materials, amid China’s renewed efforts to curb pollution by restricting steel mills operations. “Traders have been wary of the impact of ongoing restrictions on steel mills in
DXY rebounded last night as EUR fell: The Australian dollar rolled over against DMs: EMs were even weaker: Gold has formed a downtrend: Oil reversed: And metals: Plus miners: And EM stocks: Junk did better: Bonds were mostly sold: Not Australia: Stocks held on grimly: Westpac has the evetn wrap: Event Wrap US NY (Empire)
An enterprising MB reader wrote to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to express anxieties about the national interest loyalties of Member for Chisholm, Glady’s Liu. Liu is on record lying about her senior memberships of Chinese Communist Party propaganda organisations, proudly declaring a fund raising record with dubious and very likely CCP cash, cynically misled the
Deloitte today in its latest business outlook: Global growth is still slowing. Even though the trade wars are worsening, the largest single driver of the slowdown is no longer push and shove over trade. Rather, families and businesses have lost confidence in the ability of political leaders to govern wisely. Amid that rising uncertainty, business
Via Ross Gittins today: It’s amazing so many people are so sure they can see where the Reserve Bank is headed. Once interest rates are down to zero it will be on to QE – “quantitative easing” – and negative interest rates, they assure us. Don’t you believe it. …People assume the Reserve is hot
Can’t vouch for it but makes sense: Via Crikey last week: Feng Chongyi works from a small, cramped office at Sydney’s University of Technology, where he is associate professor in China Studies. Hanging on his wall is a photo of him, in 2006, sitting with top liberals and democrats within the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
Via Damien Boey from Credit Suisse: On Friday evening, the Trump administration announced a partial trade deal with China (Phase I). Key ingredients of the deal include: Delay of tariff increases that would have taken effect on 15 October. Increases in Chinese purchases of US agricultural products. Intellectual property measures. Greater currency transparency. Greater concessions
Perhaps this explains Peter Dutton’s sudden China hawkishness, via the ABC: Australia’s top universities could be aiding the Chinese Communist Party’s mission to develop mass surveillance and military technologies, amid rising concerns from Australian intelligence agencies that they are putting national security at risk. A joint Four Corners-Background Briefing investigation has uncoveredextensivecollaborations between Australian universities
Via Domain: The federal budget has had a $2.3 billion hole punched in it by lower-than-expected company tax collections and Australians eager to get their hands on the first stage of the Morrison government’s personal income tax package. Figures from the Finance Department covering the first two months of the 2019-20 financial year show company
It’s never enough bubble for Joshy Recessionberg: The big four banks will be officially investigated for their repeated failures to pass on the full extent of central bank rate cuts to consumers under a government-launched probe into home-loan gouging. Josh Frydenberg has directed the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to investigate the pricing of residential
The fundamental operational principle of Westminster democracy is that MPs take responsibility when things go wrong in their electorates or departments and resign. No more. Via Domain: Federal Liberal MP Gladys Liu is confident she no longer belongs to any “inappropriate” Chinese Communist Party-linked organisations after a “lengthy” probe of her association memberships. The first-term
Texture from Reuters: “The combination of weak demand and relatively high supply is weighing on steel prices,” said Richard Lu, senior analyst at metals consultancy CRU in Beijing. Reports that China’s top steelmaking city of Tangshan has issued new anti-pollution restrictions on mill operations, effective from Oct. 10 up to Oct. 31, did not help
DXY fell sharply Friday night as CNY and EUR took off: AUD was up and away versus DMs: Less so against EMs: Gold was hit: Oil lifted: Metals too: Big miners flew: With EM stocks: And DM junk: Bonds were all hosed: And stocks jumped: Westpac has the event wrap: A partial US-China trade deal had been
Exclusively from Gerard Minack: House prices bounce but Australia remains stagnant Australia’s housing correction is, for now, over. A lift in prices points to rising housing turnover, which will help some retailers. But none of this changes the stagnation in incomes and the sub-par growth outlook. And none of this reduces the risk of a
Via the ABC: One of the Morrison Government’s most senior figures has taken a direct swipe at Beijing, accusing the Chinese Communist Party of behaving in ways that are “inconsistent” with Australian values. The Home Affairs Minster also criticised China’s Belt and Road Initiative and defended a ban on using Huawei to help build Australia’s
Via Bill Evans at Westpac: Westpac is delighted that its currency forecasts which appear in summary in this weekly publication and in detail in the monthly publication – Market Outlook – have been extremely successful over the year to September (Westpac’s Bank Year). The surveys cover 50–60 banks which contribute forecasts to Bloomberg and are
Via Nikkei: The Thursday edition of China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper featured a photo of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Chinese President Xi Jinping smiling and shaking hands splashed across its front page. The two leaders met in Beijing on Wednesday, weeks after the island nation cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and switched
There have been times when Chris Joye has made good sense. As well as times when he becomes property bubble obsessed. Sadly we’re back to the latter as he pushes Frydenberg’s mad house price bubble plan today: There is considerable value in the RBA demonstrating that QE means it has ample monetary policy ammunition left.
So says RaboBank though the AUD is not listening today: LOL-A-PLAZA Summary: The US is reportedly weighing a bilateral currency accord with China as part of a trade agreement Our trade scepticism also holds if we focus just on the purported currency accord The US will insist on China committing to a stable or stronger
Via the excellent George Theranou at UBS: Based on our proprietary survey, our Q3 headline CPI forecast is unrevised at 0.4% q/q, slowing from Q2’s bounce to 0.6% (driven by petrol). This is partly due to retracement of fuel (-2.3%, -0.07%pts); while the UBS Evidence Lab Grocery Tracker has food up 0.7%. The y/y should
Oh yes, via the AFR: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has rejected a renewed push by NSW to bring back federal incentives for state asset recycling, a privatisation scheme designed to help fund large infrastructure projects, saying the state’s budget is in better shape than the Commonwealth’s and needs no more handouts. Speaking ahead of today’s meeting
You can’t make this stuff up. Via the AFR: Competition regulator Rod Sims has suggested big electricity companies are deliberately delaying investment in new fast-start gas power stations to defend their own profits, deepening the quarrel between government and the energy industry. In comments that were bluntly rejected by power producers but back the position
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Overnight, investors were buoyed by hopes of a trade deal, and apparent progress in Brexit negotiations: A possible narrow US-China trade deal: US President Trump suggested that talks with Chinese Vice Premier He were going well and that talks would not end prematurely as previously speculated. The
Via the AFR comes ALP rising star Richard Marles: Acting Opposition Leader Richard Marles said Labor failed its base at the last election by offering “handouts over hope”, as he joined calls for the party to move its economic focus away from tax and spend and towards generating growth. Speaking to the John Curtin Research
While various Aussie China apologists use signing up to China’s One Belt, One Road as some kind of talisman to ward off the evil of arguing with Beijing, the truth is OBOR is already cooked. Recently UBS noted that: BHP stopped short of saying exactly when China would hit peak steel, choosing to say that
