At the AFR comes the Morrison’s Government worst minister (and that’s saying something): Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor has demanded the NSW government hand over the modelling behind its energy infrastructure road map amid worries in Canberra it will push up power prices and among electricity suppliers that the policy will derail planned new gas
Via BofA: Fiscal cliff economics • Many pandemic-aid programs in the CARES Act are set to expire at the end of the year without action from Congress. • The expiration of federal UI programs—PUA and PEUC—alone could be a drag of 1.5pp in 1Q. Cutoff of other provisions will be additional headwinds. • We expect
Via News: It doesn’t sound all that riveting: the fifth plenum of the 19th Communist Party of China’s central committee. Nor does the 14th five-year-plan that sprung from the rubberstamping event, held in Beijing at the end of last month. But buried beneath the bureaucratic bumpf is a radical new plan that China hopes will
Via Morgan Stanley: November is the month when our macro team gets together to discuss its year-ahead outlooks across all asset classes. It’s a rigorous two-week process that allows us to collaborate and think about the next 12 months rather than the next 12 hours. As a strategist, I’m always torn between trying to forecast
Via News: With three words, Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf captured the panic engulfing his country as it backflips on a controversial herd immunity strategy and coronavirus case numbers explode. On Instagram, he wrote, simply: “Hold on tight!” The message is echoing around the Nordic breakaway nation which, up until now, has run a distinctly different race
Via FTAlphaville: Bitcoin’s price has been mooning in the wake of the US election, so much so it is nearing the record highs it set back in December 2017, at pixel time trading above $18,000: Speculation as to what is causing the run-up is rife. Some blame growing distrust in authority following the yet-to-be conceded
At the AFR: A submission to the government’s inquiry into the planned law changes from a range of groups, seen by The Australian Financial Review, says it is impossible to provide constructive feedback to proposals for change that are “fundamentally defective”. Organisations behind the submission include the Consumer Action Law Centre, Choice, Financial Counselling Australia,
Iron ore prices for November 19, 2020: Everything up! You will read elsewhere that Chinese demand for steel is booming and that is driving up prices. This is wrong. This is pure seasonality and iron ore is driving up steel prices despite record-high inventories seasonally-adjusted: This is the year-end restock I have warned about for
Via Markit: Latest PMI data showed the expansion in the Australian private sector economy strengthened midway through the fourth quarter as containment measures were eased further. Business activity growth accelerated in November, led again by the service sector. Inflows of new business rose further, but at a noticeably slower rate when compared to output. Business
A supine Paul Kelly took the cake on the weekend: It is a sobering thought whether Scott Morrison might end up being the first Australian prime minister since Billy McMahon not to visit China and, if so, whether that would be seen in this country as a sign of high principle or a strike against
DXY was stable Friday night: The Australian dollar fell a touch: Oil and gold both rose: Metals are off to the races: Miners were firm: EM stocks too: Junk was fine: Treasuries bid: Stocks fell again: The virus is still the story. In Europe it is now declining but has multiple weeks of lockdown to
At Nikkei: Hugh White is emeritus professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. He was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence from 1995 until 2000 and was the inaugural director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Australia today is facing the most severe threat to its economic future in many decades, as Beijing
Bartho wrote a nice piece yesterday: There has been a spate of Chinese companies defaulting on their bond repayments in the past few weeks, sending anxious ripples through the market that have even touched China’s sovereign bond yields and caused its central bank to pump liquidity into its bond market to try to calm it.
Iron ore prices for November 19, 2020: Spot up again. Paper stalled overnight. Steel is excited for no apparent reason. There’s still more inventory than at any time ever: And empties are trending lower: I don’t expect activity to fall off a cliff or anything but underlying demand is not going to grow too much
With friends like these, Labor doesn’t need enemies. Via CCP mouthpiece, Xinhua: The cold-war mentality and ideological prejudice are poisoning relations between China and Australia. Some anti-China politicians and media in Australia, who are seeking their self-interests, have spared no effort to smear China and incite China-phobia sentiment, with their most recent invention being claims
DXY was down last night: But the Australian dollar fell anyway: Gold weakened again, oil lifted: Metals are on a tear: Miners struggled: EM stocks did OK: Junk is back: Treasuries were bid: Stocks did the two-step reversion from value to growth as yields fell. Can’t lose: Westpac has the wrap: Event Wrap US weekly
Presented with great fanfare, here are the demands from Australia to China before we’ll be doing anything to restore the relationship: Free and fair elections for all repressed Chinese peoples. The resignation of Xi Jinping in disgrace for human rights abuses and inflicting the worst plague in a century upon the world. A full-blown international
Sadly the pandemic is about to enter its next dire phase. Cases are still surging along with hospitalisations and, as they flounder, deaths: Smoothed doesn’t look any better: The mortality rate has probably bottomed now as the death lag closes: El Trumpo‘s revenge is about to enter its final dark days as the economy remains
Come on, ABC, lift your game: He-Ling Shi, an associate professor of economics at Monash University, said while some goods could be sold in other markets, industries like international education would have a harder time shifting towards countries other than China. “In the long run, Australia can find alternative sources to export our education services,
There are no end to the pleasures of Australia’s Chinese decoupling. Via SCMP today: A group of Chinese investors has withdrawn its bid to purchase a A$80 million (US$58.5 million) office tower in Sydney after the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) delayed approval of the deal for eight months. Analysts conceded that while the
In the US, Fox News is under assault, via Twitchy: As many have noted in the weeks since the election there has been a notable flight from Fox News by the audience. Following a series of on-air incidents and editorial decisions by management the ratings at the annual leader in network news have been in a
Via ABS Labor Force just now and the numberwang continues with an absurd 178k jobs created versus consensus of -40k based upon the ABS’s own payrolls data: Seasonally adjusted estimates for October 2020: Unemployment rate increased to 7.0%. Participation rate increased to 65.8%. Employment increased to 12,773,900. Employment to population ratio increased to 61.2%. Underemployment
The AUD is down this morning. The hot money bet appears to be a weak jobs report: Bonds are bid and XJO is off yesterday’s gains: Big Iron is ignoring Dalian fireworks: The Big Gas value rotation has flamed out: Big Gold ouch. All the more so given BTC: Big Banks are mixed: Big Tech
Good stuff from ScoMo on Sunrise: “Australia is a sovereign country, we make our own decisions according to the nation’s interest.” “If there are concerns indicated by that unofficial document that came out of the Chinese Embassy (it is) that Australia acting in our interests — having free media, having parliamentarians elected and being able
Here’s what Coalition brains trust, Brian Fisher, author of the Menzies Research Centre report Powering out of Pandemic: Unleashing the Potential of Gas, writes today at the AFR: The competitive advantages of natural gas in our changing energy mix are too great to be ignored, even by its would-be detractors. With two-thirds of Australia’s coal
Iron more price for November 18, 2020: Spot up. Paper is getting a bit silly. Steel has not updated. Empties are falling again: It’s not a great trend. It all looks like typical restocking though Vale may have spooked spot again: Another dam break would be disastrous for Vale and highly amusing for Australia during
Bravo Beijing. Not for the first time, we can rely on you to direct Australian national interest policy more than we can the local elites that you so successfully bribed for fifteen years. The Chinese embassy has leaked to Domain a list of 14 demands that need to be met to restore relations: Beijing has
DXY was down and is at the cliff’s edge again: Gold is oddly weak given the falling DXY. BTC anyone? Oil was up: The Australian dollar was firm: The rest of my charts have gone a bit skewiff this morning. Apologies. Suffice to say bonds and stocks were sold. Westpac has the wrap: Event Wrap
Its position is preposterous and untenable on immigration. From Bill Evans at Westpac yesterday: The minutes of the November meeting along with a recent speech from the Governor emphasise a significant pivot in the Board’s approach to monetary policy. The labour market now takes centre stage. Consistent above trend growth will be required to lower
Via banking plaything Wayne Byers of APRA: “We have deliberately never put in place [dividend] guidance for a long period of time because we want to stay agile, we want to stay flexible, we want to be able to be conscious of the environment that’s evolving.” “Our first set of of guidance only lasted for
