Chinese data for October is out and its economy has become a running joke. This thing is supposed to be “rebalancing” from investment yet all it does is build more useless shit! Industrial production was at 5.9%, fixed asset investment at 5.7% and retail sales at 8.6%: It’s when we look under the hood that
By Leith van Onselen At the beginning of the year, the Turnbull Government revealed that Australia would head into a new secretive 16-member mega trade pact called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was expected to be concluded by year’s end. The RCEP is backed by China and also includes the ASEAN countries along
By Leith van Onselen A new micro political party, the Aussie Battler Party, has launched some ridiculous housing policy proposals in a bid to win a Victorian upper-house seat in this month’s election: The party’s founder Stuart O’Neill, a self-employed life coach [said]… his party’s policies include establishing a government-backed mortgage lender for people on low
By Leith van Onselen The lack of planning and foresight to cope with the never-ending population (immigration) influx into Australia’s big cities never ceases to amaze. Over the past 13-years, Melbourne’s population has ballooned by an insane 1.2 million people: And the predictable result has been the crush-loading of all manner of economic and social
AUD has been firm this morning on US/China trade hopes and consumer sentiment. Wages disappointed the market. God knows why. It really should know to discount RBA bullshit by now: Bonds are bid: XJO is down solidly: Dalian iron ore is soft. We’re mulling taking some profits on the successful RIO position on seasonal weakness
While Australia is doing its level best to not mention China in any of its recent policy shifts, China doesn’t care, via the ABC: Just days out from APEC, China has warned of a “cold war mentality” toward the Pacific in an apparent reference to Australia’s pledge to increase its influence in the region. The
By Leith van Onselen If you want a textbook example of why Australia’s skilled visa program is a giant fraud, look no further than the top five occupations granted permanent visas in the skilled stream in 2017-18: Accountants (3505) Software Engineer (3112) Registered Nurses (1561) Developer Programmer (1487) Cook (1257) According to the Department of
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released its Labor Price Index for the September quarter of 2018, which revealed more disappointing wages growth: According to the ABS, wages grew by just 0.62% (s.a.) and 0.54% (trend) in the September quarter. Private sector wages grew by 0.55% (both s.a. and
Migration Council chief and AIG supremo, Innes Willox, is in hot water today. At the ABC: “My son died for no reason, he didn’t deserve to die like that.” Eyes bloodshot, Xiancong Wu’s face is drained of colour. His wife, Guojuan, is slumped sobbing by his side, overcome by grief. Just a few weeks have
Yesterday’s Federal Court decision to stomp on ASIC’s WBC settlement has all tongues wagging. Martin North sees as bullish: The use of HEM may well be back in play, following the latest from the Westpac ASIC case. Given that at some banks HEM is still being used for around half of applications, and the Royal Commission commented
By Leith van Onselen The architect of Australia’s compulsory superannuation system, Paul Keating, has once again demanded the federal government to raise Australia’s superannuation guarantee (i.e. compulsory superannuation contributions) from 9.5% to 12%, claiming it would ensure workers retire with dignity: Mr Keating told 7.30 that super payments had to be raised to 12 per cent,
We have seen the ebbing demand of Chinese buyers as its capital account shuts: We have heard the settlement issue up close and personal on the ABC. Fast forward to Sally at 24 minutes who is a realtor managing some large settling apartment blocks in South Bank, Melbourne. Her story of Chinese buyers left high and
Via Westpac: Consumer sentiment has continued to recover from the mild setback in the September quarter. The headline index remains 1.6% below its July peak but is now more comfortably above the 100 line, indicating optimists outnumber pessimists. Indeed, while confidence may still not be particularly strong, there has been a clear improvement over 2018.
By Leith van Onselen Last year, News.com.au published an illuminating article profiling a skilled Australian IT worker that had arrived home from working as a project manager at Amazon’s Seattle campus but could not gain employment despite hundreds of job applications: AT 25 years old, James was living a tech-head’s dream. The university graduate had been
It’s all so horribly predictable. Via the AFR: After announcing that the world has arrived at a “new era for energy”, Coleman asked: “Where is the vision from our leaders today?” …”as renewables achieve scale, we risk wasting money on building more power into the system, resulting in generation overload. We risk ending up in
Via The Advisor: ANZ has informed brokers that it will introduce enhanced home loan verification requirements, effective from 20 November. Key changes include the following: PAYG income: Brokers are required to obtain three months’ bank statements showing salary credits in order to verify income (in addition to payslips). For casual, temporary and contract employees, six months
By Leith van Onselen With the release yesterday of the ABS’ lending finance data for September, it’s an opportune time to once again chart how capital city house prices are tracking against both investor and total housing finance. As readers no doubt already know, housing finance has historically been strongly correlated with values. Therefore, it
For a stimulating economy, Chinese credit isn’t exactly lighting us up. October new yuan loans were out overnight at 729bn yuan social aggregate financing and only 697bn yuan in bank loans: October is always slow but -30% year on year is slower than it ought to be: The shadow banking share fell away again: As
Iron ore prices for November 13, 2018: Spot fell. Paper too. Steel held up. Late October CISA steel output came off sharply as it should with falling seasonal demand. Surely she’s going to break here. Demand is waning with questions over Chinese stimulus. Supply issues in Peru, Brazil and Pilbara are resolved. Mills are destocking
DXY was off little last night. EUR and CNY firmed: AUD firmed as well: Gold hung on: Oil let go big: Base metals were soft: Miners weak: EM stocks better: US junk eased more: Treasuries were bid: Bunds too: Stocks were flat: Westpac has the wrap: Market Wrap Global market sentiment: Global sentiment improved following
By Chris Becker Two catalysts overnight that would normally be positive couldn’t turn around the risk off mood with US stocks stalling after European markets jumped near the close as a Brexit deal was hatched out. A new round of talks between the US and China on trade is supposed to be optimistic, but it
Via the AFR comes $2bn for small business from Amateur Treasurer Josh Frydenberg: The creation of a taxpayer-backed securitisation fund to invest in small and medium enterprise (SME) credit will also potentially expand an asset class for institutional investors such as superannuation funds to invest in. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash
UBS’s Jonathon Mott has led the sell side on the housing bust and he’s refusing to be headed now. His new note proposes a worst case scenario in which Aussie house prices crash 30%, the RBA cuts rate to zero and launches quantitative easing, and banks are crushed by cascading bad debts, cut dividends and
By Leith van Onselen Peter Gleeson’s moronic attack yesterday on Labor’s negative gearing policy has found company, with Australian Taxpayers Alliance (ATA) director, Satya Marar, also claiming Labor’s policy would somehow “slam the vulnerable”: …renters and retirees on self-managed super funds are set to take the greatest hits… While existing investors and super fund holders can
By Leith van Onselen SQM Research has released its rental vacancy series for October, which revealed a 0.1% decline in the national vacancy rate over the month and a 0.1% decline over the year: Over the year, decreases in vacancies were recorded in Melbourne (-0.1%), Adelaide (-0.3%), Perth (-1.1%), Brisbane (-0.7%) and Canberra (-0.2%), whereas
By Leith van Onselen We already know that Melbourne has experienced insane levels of population growth over the past 13 years, driven by mass immigration: And that the lion’s share of this population growth has taken place in the outer suburbs of the city: Yesterday, the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) reported that Melbourne’s outer
Via Capital Economics: Labor’s proposals for a number of regulatory changes could worsen the investment climate and dampen business confidence, but we think their impact on economic growth would be small. All told, a Labor victory would probably lead to weaker economic growth over the next couple of years. Adding in the negative wealth effect
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Trump’s protectionism might just save the WTO – Washington Post What plunging oil prices may be telling us about the stock market and global economy – MarketWatch The CEO obsession with bitcoin and blockchain is over – Axios Aggregating labour supply elasticities – VOX Global trends in interest rates
Stocks are sharply lower across most of the region in response to the risk off mood overnight with the added concern of a breakdown in Brexit negotiations and the falling oil price adding to the tensions. The PBOC again moved the Yuan closer to the 7 handle in a big move in today’s fix with
Via QCL: HORROR receival figures into the GrainCorp storage network highlight the depth of the drought in Australia’s north-eastern cropping zone. Total new-crop grain receivals into the GrainCorp bulk handling network as of November 5 totaled just 93,300 tonnes, with Victorian deliveries, traditionally not a major factor until December, making up over a quarter of the tally. And
