The machines are running out of volatility to bid. The Market Ear. Biggest volatility crash in history* “The 63% decline in the VIX over the last 9 weeks is the biggest volatility crash in history.” (Bilello) The spring 2020 post-COVID crash was the largest one prior to this (at 58%).*note that we are talking about a
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Chinese deflation marches on. In May 2025 , the national consumer price index fell by 0.1% year-on-year . Among them, urban prices remained unchanged, and rural prices fell by 0.4 % ; food prices fell by 0.4%, and non-food prices remained unchanged; consumer goods prices fell by 0.5% , and service prices rose by 0.5% . — On average in May , the national consumer price index fell by 0.1% compared with the
The ferrous complex is nothing flash, that’s for sure. But tariffs are yet to show much in its steel exports. These are absorbing an extra 100mt of iron ore from the COVID lows. Iron ore imports are lacklustre but not collapsing. I expect more downside ahead as construction continues to shrink, but unless Beijing acts
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The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which came into force in 2005, was a terrible deal for Australia that benefited the US at our expense. The Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU) investigated AUSFTA and found that, a decade after its signing, the deal had diverted more trade than
Melbourne’s population was about 3.5 million people at the turn of the century. It took 165 years for Melbourne to grow to this size in the year 2000. Fast forward to 2025, and Melbourne’s population is nearing 5.5 million. That’s almost a 2 million population increase in less than a quarter of a century. Liveability
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Falling living standards is what he promised, and he’s not going to spend his political capital on anything else! AFR. Anthony Albanese is hosing down expectations his government is about to embark on a bold new agenda just because it has a commanding majority, saying it must first deliver on what it has already promised
Last week’s Q1 national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that real per capita GDP fell by 0.2%. This represented the ninth decline in per capita GDP in eleven quarters. The following chart plots the current decline in real per capita GDP against prior episodes dating back to the beginning of
DXY can’t get off its knees. It’s not an AUD rocket so much as a tractor slogging it uphill. The big short is excellent support. Lead boots OK too. Machines are into oil. Metals no bueno. Fugly miners. EM thinks it can. Junk funk. Yields sticky. Stocks only go up. Nothing much has changed. The
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I'm in the middle of a five-week treatment for some kind of skin cancer on my chest. It's a topical cream. I have to rub it in twice a day and it burns away a couple of layers of skin over the course of the month taking with it whatever cancerous little nasties were hiding within the epidermis.
I've gone through this treatment once before, but that was a couple of years ago and my vague memories of how unpleasant it was had become vague enough for me to let the dermatologist talk me into another go-around.
The first session following the release of the latest monthly US jobs print is usually benign and that’s what we had across most risk markets overnight as speculation about what the Federal Reserve will do until the next NFP print calmed down, sending the USD slightly lower against the majors. Uncertainty over trade deals kept
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Gerard Minack destroys Australia’s sick economy. Australia remains stuck in a macro rut. Low investment and fast population growth prevent capital deepening and productivity growth. The result is stagnant real incomes and falling per capita GDP. This malaise is also reflected in anaemic corporate earnings, but not in the equity market’s premium valuation. The RBA
According to the OECD, Australia has the smallest manufacturing sector relative to its economy in the developed world. As a result, Australia is also the least self-sufficient economy in the developed world. The latest Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity, which measures the diversity and knowledge intensity of a country’s export mix, ranked Australia 102nd out of
Asian share markets are having a buoyant session across the region on the back of the “just okay” US jobs report from Friday night and some further indication that the Federal Reserve is likely to keep easing while the ECB and BOE look set to finish or have already done so. This has also given
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