Global Macro / Markets / Investing: M2 Money Supply – Am I wrong to be freaked out about this chart? – St Louis Fed Central bank asset purchases creating ‘fake markets’, analyst warns – Financial Post Global stocks rally and break records – CNBC Americas: Canadian Real Estate Prices Expected To Drop Up To 18%
According to Robert Gottliebsen, new car sales may be about to boom: Google searches for new and used cars have risen rapidly in recent weeks and this could signal that demand for new and used cars has finally turned… The car industry should benefit from further COVID-19 relaxations. Australians have been slashing their expenditure on
The Queensland government is reviewing its border restrictions on a monthly basis, as it faces growing pressure to relax the ban on interstate travellers. However, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the state will not re-open its borders until no new coronavirus infections have been recorded in New South Wales and Victoria for 28 days. They are
In June last year, Sydney’s 132-apartment Mascot Tower was evacuated after large cracks were discovered. Fresh cracks appeared in February, prompting authorities to close shops and set up an exclusion zone around the building. Then last month it was revealed that apartment owners are face a repair bill of $53 million, or $405,300 per apartment.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison pushed back against union calls to extend JobKeeper payments beyond its legislated late-September expiry date: “These are temporary measures and it is important that we get the economy out of ICU as quickly as we can. we can’t have Australians living on borrowed money for
The ABS has released data on the value of construction work done for the March quarter of 2020, which registered another 1.0% seasonally-adjusted decline in total construction activity over the quarter – the seventh consecutive quarterly decline – and a 6.5% decrease over the year: However, the result beat analysts’ expectations of a 1.5% decline
If you’re looking for a new rental property now could be the time to upgrade to that waterfront view, with prices across the city suffering from a ‘covid-crunch’. @RuthWW #9News pic.twitter.com/MQ7yM4Gu99 — Nine News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) May 24, 2020 Speaking to Nine News, SQM Research’s managing director, Louis Christopher, describes Sydney’s rental market as “very
Robert Gottliebsen has warned that the shift to working from home (WFH) could suck the life out of Australia’s CBDs. Gottliebsen claims the nation’s CBDs and their valuable infrastructure will stagnate if some semblance of normal working activity does not resume. He also argues that WFH leads to much less personal interaction, makes it harder
The ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence index rose 0.4% to 92.7 in the week to 24 May, its eighth straight increase. However, it has a long way to go to return to ‘normal’ levels: Confidence up 0.4%: Confidence gained for the eighth straight week and is up 42% from its low point in March, when
Last week, we witnessed coordinated lobbying efforts by Australia’s three main housing groups – the Property Council of Australia (PCA), the Housing Industry Association (HIA) and Master Builders Australia (MBA) – calling for subsidies to stimulate new home construction alongside a quick return to mass immigration. This came after the HIA forecast that new dwelling
SQM Research has hosed suggestions that Australia’s auction market is rebounding, recording a clearance rate of under 50% in both Sydney and Melbourne off very low volumes: Last week, Sydney recorded a final auction clearance rate of 47.0% with mid-week auctions faring worse than Saturday results (34.1% verses 49.3%). Sydney volumes continue to be at
The CEO of the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA), Phil Honeywood, has once again demanded the government allow “large numbers” of international students to enter Australia: “If the federal government is pragmatic enough to accept the separate state government proposals for pilot intakes (of international students) then it will prove the model for Australia
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Inside The $2.5 Trillion Debt Binge That Has Taken S&P500 Titans Including Boeing And AT&T From Blue Chips To Near Junk – Forbes The Share Economy won’t survive 2020: Airbnb Case Study – Towards Data Science Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is in free fall?
Melbourne apartment developer and AFR rich lister, Tim Gurner, has attacked the federal government for turning away international students and temporary migrants, claiming the slump in immigration is destroying the property market: “I am definitely not very optimistic at the moment, the economic shock is coming. It won’t bypass us,” Mr Gurner said as part
Foxtel’s new low-cost streaming service, ‘Binge’, will join an increasingly crowded subscription television market. While Binge is priced competitively, starting at $10 a month, Victoria University screen media lecturer Marc C-Scott believes the number of streaming media providers in the Australian market is unsustainable and that some are likely to fold in the next 12 months.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk continues to face mounting pressure to open Queensland’s border to interstate tourists in time for the June school holidays. This comes as Palaszczuk has signalled that the state’s borders may not be reopened to interstate travellers until September. The AFR reports today that Gold Coast hotels are facing a $6 billion wipeout
The majority of the Morrison Government’s COVID-19 support measures are due to conclude at the end of September. These measures include the JobKeeper program, the expanded JobSeeker allowance, and the loan guarantee scheme for small and medium businesses. Although some sections of the economy are showing signs of recovery, the majority of economists believe that
Hong Kong citizens continue to fight back against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) national security laws that will ban subversion, secession, foreign interference and any acts that threaten national security. Hong Kong residents have once again taken to the streets in large numbers to rally for independence, calling the national security law “a direct assault
For 15 years, the Australian union movement has stood by silently while Australia’s immigration program was more than doubled: The impacts on Australian workers has been terrible, with real wage growth stagnating for a decade: Chronic underemployment and labour underutilisation, which has obviously gotten much worse in the wake of the COVID-19 shock: And collapsing
You’ve got to hand it to the Swedes. They have responded in kind to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) bullying by shutting down the Confucius Institutes operating throughout Sweden: The deteriorating bilateral ties between Sweden and China has resulted in closure of all Confucius Institutes in Sweden – making the Scandinavian country the first country
We truly live in the real estate version of a narco state. Hot on the heels of the Property Council of Australia (PCA) and Housing Industry Association of Australia (HIA) both demanding a ramp-up in immigration to boost housing demand, the chief lobby for property developers – the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) –
The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) has released its weekly update on the Morrison Government’s early release policy, which reveals that another 1,650 million funds were withdrawn in the week ending 17 May, with total withdrawals topping $10.6 billion: As shown above, just over 1.4 million applications have been paid averaging $7,322. Looking at the
Margaret Simons wrote an interesting article in the Saturday Paper explaining how the ending of the “reckless” boom in international students means that Australia’s empire building universities will have to shrink: It was Australian tertiary institutions that first sent recruiting agencies to China and India and began tapping the market… Changes to migration policy –
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: The Coronavirus Is Exposing Wall Street’s Reckless Gamble on Bad Debt – New Yorker All the Reasons the Stock Market’s Gains Are Not to be Trusted – Barrons The world’s biggest investors are warning that the ‘fantasy’ rally will soon come crashing down – Business Insider Coronavirus stimulus will
Roy Morgan has released new data showing explosive growth across Australia’s subscription television market from all providers except Foxtel: As shown above, Foxtel only managed to grow its subscriber base by 63,000 households in the year to March 2020, which pales against: Netflix (+1.1 million); Stan (+953,000); Disney Plus (+2 million); Amazon Prime (+1 million);
Last week, the Property Council of Australia (PCA) demanded a $50,000 new home boost to “kickstart the economy” by stimulating the construction of 50,000 dwellings, alongside a massive ramp-up in immigration. The Housing Industry Association (HIA) also demanded the government open borders to temporary migrants and international students to increase housing demand. Now, Master Builders Australia
The ABS has released preliminary international trade data for April, which has registered solid falls in both imports and exports: The preliminary figures show that exports fell $4 billion or 12 per cent from the record high figure in March 2020 of $35,797m. Driving the decrease was a $1.7 billion decrease in exports of non-monetary
There’s an old saying: “When you are in a hole, stop digging”. This could easily be applied to the University of Queensland’s (UQ) bungled handling of undergraduate Drew Pavlou, which UQ is attempting to expel for shining a light on the University’s deep ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Drew Pavlou’s ‘David vs Goliath’
As reported above by Sky News, thousands of Hong Kong citizens have held a demonstration protesting Beijing’s plan to enforce national security laws on the city. Beijing unveiled plans on Friday to impose laws on Hong Kong that would ban subversion, secession, foreign interference and any acts that threaten national security. According to a CCP
The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has urged the federal government to reduce the company tax rate as part of its post-coronavirus economic strategy. MCA CEO Tania Constable says the nation’s corporate tax rate is not internationally competitive, and measures such as tax reform and speeding up project approvals could prompt a new wave of
