Iron ore prices for June 19, 2020: Everything roughly stable on Friday. Port stocks edged up. One bearish signal has emerged, the BDI: Via Reuters: “Most of the strength is due to increased Chinese steel mill demand for iron ore coupled with the increased production and exports out of Brazil,” said Randy Giveans, vice-president, equity
Great analysis here from Westpac’s excellent Justin Smirk: JobKeeper provides a significant boost to incomes but in May wages fell even though jobs gained. JobKeeper is a flat $1500/fortnight payment. As such it could have compressed wage distribution by lifting wages for lower income workers, particularly part-time workers, while lowering wages at the higher level
If you can be bothered, John Adams has returned to declare there’s no armageddon imminent: I remain bearish property and even more so now that Mr Argmageddon is not: high unemployment; permanently lower migration; plunging rents, and bank tightening. I see no end to any of these at this stage.
There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. Now do total cases. https://t.co/kzI3Dcv63W — Drew Dickson (@AlbertBridgeCap) June 18, 2020 Literally killing the base. Pretty stupid. Latest polls: Betting: With 200k dead by the election, Trump is going to need a VERY LARGE distraction to win. Cue Green Day:
This is violent economics disguised as something else, via the AFR: Morgan Stanley’s head of Australian strategy and economics, Chris Nicol, has called on the government to focus on migration despite the political heat it may draw due to elevated unemployment, arguing a healthy intake of foreigners is essential for industries like education and tourism.
The Australian dollar is weak today and still forming a bearish descending triangle pattern: Bonds are also picking up on more risk: But not stocks yet: Big Iron is soft: Big Gas better: Big Gold still consolidating: Big Banks have a very strange pattern matching the whack rotation: Big Chunt is its usual unworthy self:
Via Bloomie: Reserve Bank board member Ian Harper urged Australia’s government to come up with a “tapering arrangement” for its stimulus programs that are due to end in September, warning a sharp cutoff would damage the recovery and potentially drive unemployment even higher “The strongest form of Cold Turkey would be to cut back to
Via the excellent George Tharenou at UBS: Unemployment rate 7.1% (after 6.4%); & underutilisation a record high 20.2% The unemployment rate also rose more than (consensus) expected, from 5.2% in March, to an upwardly revised 6.4% in April (was 6.2%), and to 7.1% in May (UBS: 7.0%, mkt: 6.7%), now the highest since 2001. A
Not-China up to no good again: The Australian Government is currently aware of, and responding to, a sustained targeting of Australian governments and companies by a sophisticated state-based actor. The title ‘Copy-paste compromises’ is derived from the actor’s heavy use of proof-of-concept exploit code, web shells and other tools copied almost identically from open source.
Via the ABC: The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) considered asking private firms to stop telling Australians about slumping property prices, when the early period of coronavirus panic stoked fears of a housing market crash. In a release of highly classified documents from inside Australia’s central bank, economists discussed the need to treat the housing market
Iron ore prices for June 18, 2020: Chinese data remains terrible outside of empty apartments: I still expect the Brazilian pandemic to get much worse: Here’s the latest Chinese steel inventory chart: 30mt in June is insane. It should be 10mt lower. That said, the glut has slightly diminished in seasonally adjusted terms and I
Yesterday saw energy boffin Graeme Bethune appear at the AFR to argue that there “is no market failure in Aussie gas”: So, is it true that higher gas prices have failed to promote new east coast supply? No. The Cooper Basin achieved the highest level of production in nearly a decade in the 2020 March
Three days old I know but this is a must-watch: How can we trust these gangsters with national security?
As mentioned earlier: Here’s a chart showing if participation rate had have remained hypothetically at a 2019 average, the unemployment rate is at 11.6%. The point is no one should so readily consider prematurely removing labour market support until this situation has been materially repaired #ausbiz pic.twitter.com/wHiwX2fAzO — Alex Joiner (@IFM_Economist) June 18, 2020 The
And this won’t help, via the NYT: Mr. Bolton describes several episodes where the president expressed willingness to halt criminal investigations “to, in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked,” citing cases involving major firms in China and Turkey. “The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Mr. Bolton writes,
Fresh from the ABS comes May Labour Force: SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES Employment decreased 227,700 to 12,154,100 people. Full-time employment decreased 89,100 to 8,540,000 people and part-time employment decreased 138,600 to 3,614,100 people. Unemployment increased 85,700 to 927,600 people. Unemployment rate increased 0.7 pts to 7.1%. Underemployment rate decreased 0.7 pts to 13.1%. Underutilisation rate increased
Nobody could ever accuse SloMo of being quick out of the blocks but is sense finally here? At the AFR: The Morrison government believes moving people from JobKeeper to JobSeeker beyond the end of September will maximise their employment prospects because it will put them into a system which is designed to find them work.
A great discussion today as UQ freedom fighter Drew Pavlou joins an international panel discussing CCP influence operations worldwide with a focus on Australia. Worth your time if you can get through the poor tech: Now live with expert panel on Chinese propaganda, link here: https://t.co/VNAv9FEpD7 pic.twitter.com/zlULJk2Noa — Drew Pavlou 柏乐志 (@DrewPavlou) June 17, 2020
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Wide ranging discussion in the early June meeting. Based on the conclusion to the statement accompanying the RBA’s June meeting decision, one would have thought that fiscal-monetary co-ordination was an important theme for discussion among board members. But the June meeting minutes revealed very little explicit attention given to the
Iron ore prices for June 17, 2020: Chinese data is still bloody ordinary: So is Brazilian: So I take this with a grain of salt: Iron ore miner Vale said that operations will gradually resume at its Itabira complex in Brazil. The complex was shuttered on June 5 due to the spreading COVID-19 virus. The
Via the ABC: Reserve Bank economists considered urging the Federal Government to shut down the real estate industry, “pausing” sales of established homes to avoid perceptions of a coronavirus-inspired housing market crash. Highly classified documents from inside Australia’s central bank also suggest house prices could slump up to 15 per cent. The internal reports contradict
Via News: A student activist who led protests against the Chinese Communist Party claims the University of Queensland has directed a top-tier law firm to threaten him with contempt of court. Drew Pavlou said his lawyer Mark Tarrant received a letter from Clayton Utz, representing UQ, which outlined plans to initiate a new contempt of
Lordy, COVID-19 is exposing the Kouk as an economist of such throwaway views that he might well claim the earth is flat shortly: Where do you think the $7.0b “to private bank accounts” comes from? It is from the savings in – wait for it – private bank accounts (household savings /super funds / insurance
It’s not. Capital Economics has some handy charts. The US: Europe a bit better: China the best but not good: Asia big trouble: EMs next: At present valuations it still screams “sell stocks”.
It’s a laugh a minute for the cynic: The National Retail Association (NRA) has condemned the Victorian Government for imposing unnecessary red tape on struggling small retailers as Australia enters its first recession in 30 years. Last night the Victorian Parliament passed the Wage Theft Bill 2020, despite staunch opposition from the small business community.
Via BofAML monthly fundie survey. The most number of fundies see a stock bubble ever: But perhaps that just means we short squeeze even higher: Nobody believes in earnings: But they’re chasing it now anyway: Hedgies are piling in. What exactly are they “hedging”? Biden risk is rising: I’d add the stock bubble itself at
More a second ripple, via the ABC: It’s been two weeks since restrictions eased on June 1, so what’s happening to Australia’s COVID-19 curve? Compared to the low coronavirus infection numbers we have become used to seeing in Australia, this week we’ve seen a big jump. New cases have been in the double digits for
Cross-posted from FTAlphaville: If you had managed to avoid reading the financial press for the past few weeks, and then decided to catch-up on today, you might notice a new phrase being banded about in market commentary. Namely, “Robinhood investors”. Shorthand for retail punters utilising commission-free brokerage platforms (such as Robinhood) to buy stocks, a
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Infrastructure stimulus package in the wings? Numerous press reports are emerging that US President Trump is mulling over a USD 1 trillion infrastructure stimulus package to shore up the recovery. The reports follow recent Fed announcements (or more precisely, reiterations with more detail) on corporate bond purchasing and “Main Street”
