By Leith van Onselen It has been well documented on this site that the New Zealand housing market is, once again, facing bubble-like conditions, with prices in its two major markets – Auckland and Christchurch – rising strongly on the back of low interest rates, increasing credit availability, and tightened supply (see next chart). A
Following from Houses and Holes podcast yesterday on his views before the RBA rates meeting, here is Chris Becker A.K.A The Prince, our resident trader talking with Gunnamatta about trading and beginning in the markets.
If you believe the reporters at MarketWatch then the Dow pushed to a new all-time high above 15,000 and the S&P closed at another new all-time high because the RBA cut rates yesterday. At first blush that seems a ludicrous notion but when you think about it for a second it actually makes a lot
From the SMH: It may go down as one of the great currency bets in Australian dollar history – a $US1 billion gamble on a Reserve Bank rate cut that has delivered a $US19 million ($18.65m) profit in 36 hours. The beneficiary, if you believe the rumour mill, is investment legend George Soros. Best of
Cross-posted from Kate Mackenzie at FTAlphaville. China’s State Council has announced intentions to carry out some potentially quite big reforms. From Bloomberg: China signaled it will propose plans this year to allow freer flows of its currency in and out of the nation as part of measures to loosen control over the yuan and interest rates.
By Leith van Onselen The Victorian Government yesterday released the State Budget for 2013-14, which included the following headlines: Operating surplus of $225 million in 2013-14. Government infrastructure investment program of $6.1 billion in 2013‑14, including transformational investments in East West Link – Stage 1, the Port of Hastings, road, freight and public transport. Delivering the new Bendigo, Monash Children’s and
The drip feed of exclusive Government budget cuts to the AFR continues today with carbon tax cuts next on the chopping block: Labor’s carbon package is in tatters, with $1.4 billion of tax cuts scheduled for 2015 to be dumped in next Tuesday’s budget, and cuts to clean-energy initiatives, because a slump in the European
Alan Mitchell has it right today: The Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to slice another 0.25 of a percentage point off the official cash rate was largely to make up for the Australian dollar’s failure to depreciate in line with the economic fundamentals. And there might be more to come. The statement by the governor,
It’s was a humbling afternoon for Australian economics yesterday with just 8 of 29 surveyed economists getting the rate cut right. I’ll claim this one, as I said last week: March quarter GDP is now irrelevant. The current round of easing has always been forward looking to the extent that it is anticipating the mining
Well, there go the 2013 gains for Roy Morgan consumer confidence. RM puts it down to: The weekly Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating shows Consumer Confidence plunging to 113.6 (down 5.3pts since April 27/28, 2013). Consumer Confidence is now 3.3pts higher than at the same time a year ago when it was 110.3 (May 5/6,
Find below the iron ore price table for May 8, 2103:
Global Macro/Markets: Dow 15000: What it Means, What it Doesn’t Mean – MoneyBeat – WSJ – Wall Street Journal Hedge fund chief Paulson a big loser in gold rout – Reuters Paulson Said to Lose 27% in Gold Fund Last Month in Rout – Bloomberg Subprime bond bounces back, leaving behind a subprime borrower –
US investors continue to push up stocks, with traders looking to gain exposure to more cyclically-focused areas of the market, and not defensives. You can certainly understand this, with Goldman Sachs suggesting that cyclicals are more undervalued relative to defensives than at any other time in the past fifteen years. Perhaps this will be a
From the FT comes a story that has great national significance to Australia but has been missed by the media completely. The US is going to export LNG: The Obama administration has signalled support for more plants to export liquefied natural gas, as the US embraces its surging energy production as a key new element of its
From Property Observer: National Australia Bank today announced it would cut its standard variable home loan rate by 0.25%p.a. to 6.13%p.a… The new rate is effective from Monday 13 May. NAB will also reduce its rate on standard variable business rate lending products by 0.25%p.a. UBank, backed by NAB, also announced it would cut
By Leith van Onselen Just in, the RBA has cut the official cash rate to a record low 2.75%, effective 8 May 2013, on the back of lower than expected inflation in the March quarter and the stubbornly high exchange rate. Here’s the RBA’s statement: Statement by Glenn Stevens, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision At its
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released visitor arrivals and departures data for the month of March, which revealed surging net temporary migration into Australia, but falling net permanent migration. In the year to March 2013, permanent and long-term arrivals into Australia hit their highest ever level of 671,130 people,
Credeit Suisse is out with an interesting quant note screening for the best of Australia’s dividend stocks: The Australian market offers the fourth highest dividend yield and the highest payout ratio within the G20 markets. Quality and yield seem to be the dominant themes in the market place. Indeed, quality factors (such as return on equity
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released trade data for the month of March, with Australia recording a surprise seasonally-adjusted trade surplus of $307 million. Analysts had expected the trade balance to come in flat. It was the first monthly surplus in 15 months (see below chart). In seasonally
By Leith van Onselen The last of the major house price data providers, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), today released their capital city house price indices for the March quarter of 2013, which reported a 0.1% increase in capital city house prices over the quarter. However, the result was strengthened by the fact that
Here readers is another little trial for you to give us feedback on with me starring in an internal radio interview. Let us know your thoughts. Note the first player format – OGG – will not work on iPad/iPod/iPhone devices, but is smaller. The second is in MP3 format and should work on all devices.
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s retail sales data left a question market over whether retail sales are staging a solid recovering after a prolonged period of weakness, or just another ‘dead cat bounce’. While a -0.4% fall in retail sales was recorded in March, sales over the prior two months had been strong, meaning that
Cross-posted from Mark the Ballot. Last week, I urged caution with one poll suggesting a decline in Labor support. This week, we see more evidence of a decline in Labor support: Essential has moved a point in the Coalition’s favour (now 56 to 44) over last week and the pervious independent fortnight Newspoll has moved a point
Dunn and Bradstreet do a quite useful business expectations survey every month that I will add to our regular coverage. It gives a decent reading of current conditions versus expectations of the following quarter. Today’s release for April is another sobering indicator. Current sales are going OK if fading: Profits are travelling better, pretty obviously
The AiG Performance of Construction Index (PCI) is out for April and, such as it is, is disastrous for the RBA and Treasury project of boosting housing construction to replace mining investment. I don’t entirely trust the AiG PMI series. But it hard to ignore falls like this: All of this year’s recovery is gone.
Markets were fairly quiet overnight relative to the fireworks and bullishness of Friday. No doubt the UK holiday had something to do with this but equally the lack of data in the US and the subdued nature of the Chinese, German and European Services PMI’s that were released yesterday while they didn’t exactly knock the
Late yesterday,the Senate Economics Committee released its report into why the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) has failed to collect its projected revenues. It is a tale of subterfuge, ineptitude and corruption worthy of Wall Street. It is too long to excerpt but you must read Chapter 2: Explaining the Revenue Shortfall. Bear in mind
Fresh of the presses: That will have an impact across the budget period and what I can confirm is that the impact in the current financial year, between last year’s budget and this year’s budget looks to be in the order of $17 billion. …Ms Wong said as a result of falling revenue, the government
From the AFR this morning: The shortfall in forecast budget revenue will be between $60 billion and $80 billion from now to 2016, forcing the Gillard government to dump spending pledges, including $1.8 billion in family assistance. Next week’s federal budget will reveal the total write-down in tax collections in the current financial year will amount
From the SMH: The Australian dollar fell in evening trade on the back of rumours that billionaire US investor George Soros is planning to short the currency. The Aussie dollar slipped from $US1.0284 in late local trade to $US1.0253 in offshore trade as traders reacted to unconfirmed rumours that Mr Soros – who famously shorted
