I long for a competent opposition.

Last week, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) released its new prudential standard, effective February 2026, which caps high-risk mortgages (debt-to-income ratio over 6x) at 20% of new lending.

Friday night saw Wall Street return from its short Thanksgiving break and aside from some technical difficulties trading was bullish across the major indicies, with European stock markets also lifting into the month end.

DXY held, but the uptrend looks set to be tested.

Last week, Cotality released its housing affordability report for the September quarter of 2025, which revealed that rental affordability has hit its lowest level on record.

By Lucinda Jerogin, Associate Economist at CBA: Australian headline inflation surprised to the upside, accelerating 3.8% through the year to October.

Gunnamatta.Molva · Deet T – Australian economy, market volatility, the AI wave, Crypto and investment flows Against the backdrop of recent market volatility Deep T talks about asset bubbles and investment as the AI wave enters the national consciousness.

Labor’s First Home Guarantee scheme, which commenced at the beginning of October, enables first home buyers to purchase a home with only a 5% deposit without requiring lenders’ mortgage insurance, with the government guaranteeing 15% of the mortgage.

I cannot comment on the prospects of the latest deal, but we can run some scenario analysis to assess the outcomes.

Recall Labor’s Powering Australia Plan, released before the 2022 federal election, which claimed that it would cut NEM wholesale power rates by $11 per MWh (from $62 to $51) by 2025, resulting in lower retail power prices.

The Market Ear on stocks and fear. Panic gone The extreme VIX vs SPX gap is gone. Chart shows SPX vs VIX (inverted).

Recall that long-time immigration influencer Abul Rizi, who has forever championed a Big Australia and has ruthlessly attacked anybody arguing for lower immigration, amusingly endorsed the Canadian government’s sharp immigration cuts.

The larger the nation’s bureaucracy, the worse the policymaking. Data from the Australian Public Service Commission (APS) shows that the number of federal public servants increased by 7.4% in 2024-25, to a record high of 198,529.

In 2024, the NSW Productivity Commission warned that excessive housing costs were driving younger residents out of Sydney, resulting in a “brain drain” of 30- to 40 year olds.

The robots are coming for your job.

There are some days when an economist can only shake his head in appalled wonder.

With Wall Street closed for Thanksgiving there wasn’t much of a boost for risk markets across the trading complex, with most stock indices finishing where they started and currencies holding on to their recent gains against the USD.

DXY was soft overnight with US markets closed for Turkey Day.

This week saw the release of two important housing affordability reports from Cotality and Proptrack.

Asian equity markets are generally up with the lack of a lead tonight as Wall Street will be closed for thanksgiving (thanking the AI bubble that is stuffing the stock market turkey that it is).

Undoubtedly, the deterioration in quality has been obvious for years in eastern metropolitan dailies and continues.