Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Jeff Bezos would pay over $ 5 Billion a year under Warren Wealth Tax Plan. – CNBC Startups Lose Innovative Edge Under Corporate Funding. When an established tech company invests in a startup, innovation suffers – Medium American Homeowners Are Adding Fuel to Bond Market Sell-Off – Bloomberg Experts
Roy Morgan Research has released its business confidence survey for February, which reported its “highest three-month average sentiment since January to March 2014”. Business confidence rose 0.3pts (+0.2%) to 120.8 in February to be 7.3pts above the long-term average of 113.5 (see next chart). Business Confidence is now 16.2pts higher than it was a year
All indicators are pointing to a mega boom for Perth’s property market. According to CoreLogic’s February dwelling value results, Perth recorded the strongest quarterly value increase of all capital cities, with prices surging 4.3%. This was the strongest price growth since 2006. The latest market indicators from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA)
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released national accounts for the December quarter, which registered a 3.1% rebound in real GDP over the quarter with GDP falling 1.1% through the year. On a per capita basis, real GDP rose by 3.0% over the quarter and was down 1.8% over the year. The seasonally adjusted
Fairfax reports that the federal government has announced an extension of Australia’s international border closure until at least 17 June 2021. This will mean that Australia’s international border will have been shut for 15 months after initially closing on 17 March 2020. Health Minister Greg Hunt says the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee had recommended
CoreLogic has released its New Zealand dwelling value results for February, which shows that price momentum continued to gather steam. Dwelling values nationally surged by 2.6% over February to be up a whopping 7.6% over the quarter and by 14.5% year-on-year. As shown in the next chart, quarterly value growth is running at its hottest
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to adversely impact the nation’s CBDs. According to recent data from Roy Morgan Research, people movements in January were well down on the same time last year across every Australian capital city, with Melbourne and Sydney most adversely impacted (see next chart). With so Australians still working from home and avoiding
After three consecutive weekly declines following Melbourne’s hard lockdown, the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index posted a 1.0% rise on 27/28 February, taking the index to around the long-run average (see next chart). According to ANZ’s head of Australian economics, David Plank, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about rising inflation, brought about in part by
The ABS has released Australia’s national accounts for the December quarter of 2020, with GDP surging by 3.1% over the quarter, easily beating analyst’s forecasts of a 2.5% rise. However, GDP fell 1.1% in calendar year 2020. Below are the key statistics: The Australian economy rose 3.1% in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures Through the
For years, utopian urban planners have predicted the end of suburbia. We were told that people would increasingly shun suburban life in favour of higher density living close to CBDs whereby families would choose proximity and convenience over space. This claim was always a myth, with urbanisation being mostly a suburban affair. The COVID-19 pandemic
SQM Research has released its Stock on Market data for February, which showed that the number of for sale listings nationally fell a further 2.7% to be down a whopping 13.1% year-on-year. Listings are down heavily everywhere except Melbourne and Sydney, which have both recorded rising listings year-on-year: The overall decline has been driven by
Record low interest rates and households awash with stimulus money is having interesting effects on Australian borrowing habits. On the one hand, Aussies are taking advantage of the lowest borrowing rates on record to pile into the housing market, with new mortgage issuance running at all-time high levels in January, according to the Australian Bureau
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Charging patients just $10 more for medications leads to more deaths – VOX What To Do on the Stock Market in 2021? Warren Buffett Advises You To Bet on America. His confidence in America is unshakeable. – Medium Is Inflation a Risk? Not Now, but Some See Danger Ahead
As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) held the cash rate steady at 0.10% today and reaffirmed the parameters of the Term Funding Facility (TFF) and bond purchase program. In a nutshell: The RBA expects GDP to return to its pre-COVID level by mid-year. Wage growth and inflation are expected to remain subdued for
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has hailed the success of the federal government’s HomeBuilder stimulus after loans for construction rose for their seventh consecutive month to the highest levels on record: “Confidence in the housing market has been improving since the announcement of HomeBuilder in June 2020… “The number of construction loans to owner occupiers
Fairfax’s survey of 22 well-known economists shows that most believe that real wages will fall over the coming two years, despite the economy’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. They forecast that wage growth will fall further to 1.2% this year before lifting to 1.6% in 2022. However, this growth will be below inflation, with the
The federal government recently suspended indefinitely a ‘star rating’ system that ranks privately-run employment services providers. Its decision has been described as ‘galling’ by unemployment support groups, as it comes at a time when the government is increasing its auditing of job applications submitted by unemployed people, as well as implementing a hotline for employers
National COVID Commission chairman Nev Power contends that the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme should end as scheduled in late March. Power says retaining the scheme would risk distorting the labour market by encouraging employers to retain staff that they should lay off, who could then be redeployed to sectors that are experiencing a shortage of
The Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) president Omar Khorshid says the federal government’s goal of vaccinating the entire population by October is looking challenging, and the end of the year is looking more realistic. The federal government has already fallen well short of its target of vaccinating 60,000 people by the end of February, with only
Over the past year we have heard dire reports that the closure of Australia’s international border and the loss of international students would deal a death blow to our universities but cutting their fee income by billions. Turns out that the university sector is doing just fine with many actually declaring surpluses during the pandemic,
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released dwelling approvals data for the month of January, which reported a sharp decline after the HomeBuilder subsidy was cut from $25,000 to $15,000. Total approvals tanked by 19.4% in January, but were still 19.0% higher over the year. The decline was broad-based with house approvals down 12.2%
As expected, Australia’s business lobby and wealthy elite are growing more vocal demanding the federal government open Australia’s international border to migrants. These groups like mass immigration for three main reasons: It provides a bigger pool of available workers to recruit, thereby increasing competition in the labour market, lowering worker bargaining power, and holding down
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released its index of commodity prices for the month of February, which continues to boom. The commodity price index rose by 3.6% in February in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) terms – the key determinant of Australia’s terms-of-trade – to be up 19.6% over the quarter and 23.9% year-on-year.
It is reported in The AFR that the federal government will allocate an additional $452 million to aged-care in response to the final report of the royal commission into the sector, with further measures to be included in the May Budget. The report has made a total of 148 recommendations, with commissioners Tony Pagone and
The early COVID-19 pandemic was a disaster for Australian workers, but a boon for companies. Forced economic shutdowns caused many Australians to lose their jobs or have their hours reduced, which temporarily sent the nation’s wage bill into decline. By contrast, company profits boomed on the back of generous subsidies such as JobKeeper and the
For the first time in more than a decade, Australia’s first home buyers (FHB) are enjoying their moment in the sun. Thanks to generous subsidies and a 60 basis point discount in mortgage rates, the value of mortgages issued to FHBs has overtaken investors. As illustrated in the next chart, there were $7.2 billion FHB
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Bill Gates on bitcoin: If you have less money than Musk, watch out – Guardian Mag Content Moderation Costs Social Media Companies Billions – Quora A digital dollar would help the U.S. and its allies keep China in check – CNBC Musk loses about $ 14 billion in one
A month is certainly a long-time in the age of COVID. In late-January, New Zealand was ranked as the world’s best COVID manager by think tank, the Lowy Institute, beating out Vietnam (2nd), Taiwan (3rd), Thailand (4th) and Cyprus (5th). Australia was ranked 8th best COVID manager in the world. New Zealand’s performance since then
CoreLogic has released its full dwelling values results for February, which confirmed that a synchronised boom has developed with every capital city market and Australia’s regions reporting strong price inflation. The results are summarised in the table below: The 2.1% price growth nationally was the strongest month-on-month increase since August 2003: According to CoreLogic’s research
Suncorp Group chair Christine McLoughlin has called on the federal government to expedite the opening of Australia’s international border. She claims that businesses are suffering from the ban on international visitors, such as international students, migrant workers and tourists. She also claims that the economy will suffer from having a smaller, older population: “We’ve got
