Via Banking Day: Nathan Lynch of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence The revelations about Chinese asset recovery agents operating covertly in Australia will put pressure on the Department of Home Affairs to introduce law reforms ahead of the May general election. The government is sitting on “Phase 1.5” legislation that will prepare Australia for the introduction
Via the AFR: Coles’ net profit fell 29.4 per cent to $381 million in the six months ending December after Australia’s second largest food and liquor retailer booked $146 million in supply chain restructuring charges. …Coles posted its 45th consecutive quarter of same-store food sales growth, but momentum slowed dramatically to 1.3 per cent in
DXY was still soft last night as EUR rallied: Even so, the Australian dollar copped it across the board: Gold broke out: Oil is still charging as hedgies occupy the Venezuala hole: Base metals were mixed: Big miners too: EM stocks have stalled: Junk was OK: US markets were closed and the German curve flattening
Iron ore prices for February 18, 2019: Spot and paper up. Steel down. Ferrous and steel markets are headed in opposite directions. This is unsustainable as Chinese steel mill profits collapse. Normally, bulks would getting caned right about now but the artificial prop is Vale, via AFR: Brazil’s government on Monday banned new upstream mining
The warnings of slower services activity spreading from the housing bust continue to mount. We know that Westpac is stalled, BOQ is shrinking, McGrathmageddon and Domainmageddon roll on. But these are obvious, direct casualties. More interesting now are indirect multipliers. There’s SG Fleet for instance: Fleet management provider SG Fleet has posted a 7 per
Via The Guardian: Labor narrowly leads the Coalition 51 to 49 on a two-party-preferred basis, according to the survey, representing a swing of 5.3% since the last election in 2015. The poll reaffirms the possibility the Coalition could be facing minority government after election day on 23 March, or be returned with only a wafer-thin
Via AFR: Many more voters trust Labor than the Coalition to implement the recommendations of the banking royal commission, according to a poll that also shows Josh Frydenberg and his rival Chris Bowen level-pegging as the nation’s preferred treasurer. The latest The Australian Financial Review-Ipsos poll, the first for this political year, shows almost half
We’ve seen this before. The method is to find isolated property bulls and represent them as some kind of booming movement. Via the AFR, apparently looming rate cuts and no more Hayne has: …lifted a range of housing market indicators – open inspection attendances, auction attendances and auction clearance rates – above their levels of
Via Domain: Two Australian Chinese-language papers have dedicated their front pages to an open letter backing billionaire Huang Xiangmo, whose permanent residency was cancelled for reasons including character grounds in early February. The letter, which appeared on the front pages of the Sing Tao Daily and Australian Chinese Daily and inside a third, the Daily
Via Banking Day comes Nathan Lynch of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence: Chinese law enforcement agencies have resorted to the use of private sector “bounty hunters” to track down assets in Australia that are linked to Mainland corruption, as diplomatic tensions flare over money laundering and capital flight. Australia is growing increasingly concerned about the use of
It was wall-to-wall boats on the weekend which left anyone with a brain drained of life. There is no purpose recycling the crud but two pieces stood at either end of the spectrum for both sense and stupidity, both at Domain. The first was Peter Hartcher who was most sensible: Scare campaigns are ugly, they’re unoriginal, but,
Via Domain: “I don’t know what the platform is,” says one despondent activist of the Greens’ campaign. “I don’t even know what the f—ing slogan is.” …Now a long-term parliamentary staffer, Jack Gough, is also resigning, telling the Herald that he believes those scientists who say the world has only a dozen or so years
Because he sounds like he needs it, via Bloomie: Harry Triguboff is remarkably calm about Australia’s worst real estate slump in a generation considering he’s got more at stake than perhaps anyone on the planet. …“If prices fall, I’ll buy the land cheaper,” Australia’s second-richest person said with a wave of his hand. “As long
Australians are paying more for their gas than the Japanese again. Asian spot prices are today at approximately $9Gj. On the east coast of Australia they are approximately $10Gj. Under the terms of the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM) the local export net-back and spot price should now be $7Gj. Though we should also
DXY was weak Friday night. Unusually, so was EUR: The Australian dollar jumped against the USD but held elsewhere: CFTC data is still lagging badly but mid-January numbers still had the AUD moderately short at -37k contracts: Gold jumped: Oil took off: Base metals too: And big miners: EM stocks were surprisingly subdued: But junk
China released its January credit numbers over the weekend and it has unleashed its credit cracken. Bank loans were at 3.2tr yuan and non bank at 1.6tr for total social financing of 4.6tr yuan: Shadow banking also rebounded to 30% of the total: M2 pushed up to 8.4%: The rolling annual boomed: Under the bonnet,
Via Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Overnight, we received very disappointing US retail sales data. Headline nominal sales fell by 1.2% over the month, their sharpest monthly decline since the financial crisis. Notwithstanding ongoing strong job creation, consumption weakened on the back of low confidence and market turbulence. We estimate that year-ended growth in
Via Nikkei: A massive building boom across China, including in tier-two cities like Jinan, has left as many as 65 million empty apartments across the country, according to estimates by Gan Li, a professor at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu. Sales volumes in 24 cities tracked by China Real Estate Index System fell
AHG warns big time: Yuk: Plenty more where that came from. Yuk:
Do not expect any loosening of credit in this cycle, via AFR: The corporate regulator’s chief prosecutor, Daniel Crennan, QC, has warned the government has empowered him to pursue “extremely harsh civil penalties and criminal sanctions against banks, their executives and others” after the Senate passed tough new rules for white-collar offences. Corporate executives could
Here’s the DHG wrap: And the segment split: The biggest issue is in the print revenue: Less people spending less on glamour ads, I guess. Then there’s the write down which sounds lie the tip of the iceberg and an outlook that ain’t much to celebrate: Dour stuff with the risk of considerably worse ahead.
According to popular argument, it killed Malcolm Turnbull and the Libs in Wentworth, and has brought the government to its knees in blue ribbon electorates around the country. Yes, it’s energy policy. Yet as of today, with an election three months away, the Scummo Government has none, via AFR: So Scott Morrison’s big stick has
Via The Australian: Ken Henry is nothing if not staunch in his self-belief. His friends have often described him as the “great oak” – the stronger the wind blew, the harder he pushed back. For months since a disastrous appearance before the Hayne banking royal commission last year, Henry was convinced that he had done
DXY softened a touch last night as EUR firmed: The Australian dollar was weak against DMs: But strong against EMs: Gold firmed: Oil too: Base metals are giving reflation the bird: Big miners were mixed: EM stocks flat: And junk: Treasuries bid big: The bund curve keeps flattening: Stocks were flat: The big data release
Goldman yesterday pushed out its rate hike expectations to mid-2020: We still view the most likely scenario as one in which the economy navigates a key risk period over the first half of 2019 and interest rates edge higher over the medium term – albeit somewhat later than we previously forecast. …We have some sympathy
Iron ore prices for February 14, 2019: We may be setting some kind of trading range in the $80s here but we’ll have to wait and see. I still expect mills to destock violently the moment they feel secure about Vale supplies. The signs in yesterday’s Chinese trade data confirm as much. Iron ore imports
Via Capital Economics: Shipments beat expectations but seasonal distortions muddy the water • The January trade data were much stronger than anticipated but seasonal volatility caused by annual shifts in the timing of Chinese New Year make it difficult to get a good grip on underlying trends at this time of year. Even if the
A nice follow up today from Martin North to yesterday’s Should I buy property now?: The only question I have is why Martin sees it as a “slow slide”. Sydney and Melbourne are falling at more than 4% per quarter.
Via AFR: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released updated guidance on how banks should verify customers living expenses before lending, to meet its expectations regarding the responsible lending laws. Lenders using the Household Expenditure Measurement (HEM) as a benchmark will need to apply a “reasonable buffer” reflecting the benchmark is too low.
Via New Daily: Labor is preparing to unleash a Mediscare 2.0-style campaign, claiming the Morrison government cannot be trusted on GP fee increases and cuts to health. In her first major speech to the National Press Club, opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King said having failed to introduce the $7 GP co-payment, the Prime Minister was trying
