The ferrous complex remains paralysed by too much versus too much hope. Some Morgan Stanley charts illustrate the point. Steel is weak globally and abundant in China still. We are about to witness the weakest New Year restock in history, just as Chinese steel exports top out on trade wars. Iron ore is everywhere! The
What we are seeing in many markets today is exactly what I expected to see when I made my 40 cents AUD call a few years ago. American exceptionalism is alive in the AI bubble but severely crimped by anti-Trumpian capital flows. The Chinese economy is slowly dying, but propped up as it pours money
Being a renter in Australia is like competing in the Hunger Games. After borders reopened in late 2021, temporary migrants flooded into Australia in record volumes: As a result, rents surged and vacancy rates collapsed: At the end of 2024, Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) reported that the percentage of household income spent on rents hit a
Queenscliff pier at sunrise AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold….we are now in parabola mode… West Texas Intermediate Brent Australia 200 US S&P 500 UK 100 Japan 225 Videos
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The NSW government has been criticised for blocking Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for access to taxpayer-funded reports on the likely impact of closing down coal-fired power stations on electricity prices. The government has commissioned at least 10 reports, studies, and presentations between June 2024 and July 2025 on the impact of its emissions reduction
New Zealand’s economy is in a deep hole. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, real GDP contracted sharply in the June quarter, drastically underperforming the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s forecast: The number of filled jobs in New Zealand has also contracted sharply: As a result, the Reserve Bank on Wednesday chose
One of the often repeated tropes of social media discourse or backyard BBQ political debates is the idea that the election victories that Labor has won in Victoria and federally are indicative of the public holding a high level of support for their leadership. Such an assumption is not a new phenomenon. This perspective has
There is a commonly held economic narrative that Indian demand for commodities will compensate for the reduction in Chinese demand as China’s economy slows and rebalances toward a consumer-focused model. The reality of this narrative is perhaps best summed up by the chart below from Visual Capitalist, which shows that China produced more steel in
In a speech to the National Press Club, BlueScope CEO Mark Vassella warned that Australia risks following the UK’s industrial decline if the federal government fails to fix the gas market. Vassella and other industry leaders say that without cheaper gas, the federal government’s Future Made in Australia policy is doomed, and Australia will become
The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) has consistently flagged high loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) mortgage lending as a risk area. For example, in December 2014, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) released guidance stating that “ADIs should not undertake large volumes of, or increase their share of, higher-risk lending. This included lending at very high LVRs”: