The latest data suggests that momentum in the housing market has softened as buyers await further interest rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). This week’s mortgage finance data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that the value of new housing lending declined by 1.6% in the March quarter, taking the annual
International Reading: DOGE worker admits the government works fine and was hoping for more easy wins. – Futurism What has Elon Musk’s Doge actually achieved? – FT Mike Johnson Argues Congress Needs Stock Trading to ‘Support Their Families’ Due to ‘Frozen’ Salaries – Latin Times GOP civil war breaks out over Medicaid as right calls
AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold WTI Brent Australia 200 US S&P 500 UK 100 Japan 225
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Australia has too many cafes, and many will need to close down. According to IBIS World, over 27,000 cafes and coffee shops operate in Australia. Competition is fierce, with multiple cafes often operating at the same locations. And there isn’t enough consumer demand to sustain them. Australian households are caught in a cost-of-living crisis. Real
Much ado about nothing in iron ore. Some good charts from ANZ. Property steel is still falling. I expect it to fall much more than they do this year. Non-property demand is going nowhere in volume terms. Exports are at risk. The market is supported somewhat by a weak CNY restock. 90-100 per tonne probably
Now this is some good news on gas for once. The planned LNG import terminal at Port Kembla, backed by billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Squadron, will not be ready to receive gas until at least mid-2027, delaying a key project intended to safeguard Australia’s east coast energy supply. Rob Wheals, the chief executive of Squadron Energy,
Exorbitant land costs are the fundamental driver behind Australia’s expensive housing. During 2023-24, the residential land values that underpin the housing market grew by 8.8%, reaching a valuation of $7.7 trillion. Over the 35 years to 2023–24, residential land values skyrocketed from 1.1 to 2.9 times Australia’s GDP. In contrast, aggregate structure values only increased
More pain from The Market Ear. After the China/US trade talks JPM’s great derivatives team dives in: “The China-US trade talks in Geneva have been more positive than anticipated and have resulted in a normalization of the volatility spread between the S&P 500 and European indices. We recommend buying SPX short-dated calls, fully funded by selling
New Zealand experienced one of the world’s biggest house price booms over the pandemic, with prices soaring by around 30%. As a result, the 2022 Demographia Housing Affordability Survey ranked New Zealand as having one of the world’s most expensive housing markets, with a median multiple of 11.2 in 2021. New Zealand’s market has since
DXY is taking a breather. That could not help the AUD. No lead boots. Gold up. Metals down. Big miners still look fugly. EM stocks hit resistance. Junk says no problemo. Yields eased. Stocks mixed. TS Lombard sounds about right today. The US-China truce removes major USD downside risk. The significant de-escalation in trade tensions