The gas cartel breather is over. It’s back to gouging you to death with gas at $14.50Gj. Electricity prices are still up 150% year on year. AER prices are going to jump in 25/26. The pipelines south from QLD’S huge gas resources are still running near empty when they should be filling up much larger
The bubble of a lifetime in CBA shows no signs of bursting at 26x growthless earnings. Hilariously, on two-year forward earnings, CBA is the Magnificent 8th! And Aussie banks are plain stupid in context. I still maintain that this bubble is going to burst when rate cuts begin. The mass immigration economy does not do
The Market Ear on the Trump cross-currents for equities. The 10 year US 10 year putting in the biggest down candle in a while post the CPI numbers. First support at 4.6%, where the 21 day comes in. The 50 day is down at 4.43%. Source: Refinitiv Bond convexity CTA 1 month upside convexity is
Steel prices are continuing to show some life. Not so iron ore. CISA steel mill output for the first 10 days of January was strong. However, that is unlikely to last beyond the seasonal rebuild. RIO confirmed strong guidance (though its recent record has been shit). More to the point, RIO confirmed the Pilbara killer
ANZ has an interesting chart today. Without putting too fine a point on it, there is a correlation between population growth and job creation. This is pretty uncontroversial and part of the well-understood demographic dividend. When the inflows are accompanied by an exogenous boom, such as between 2003 and 2012, this makes perfect sense. The
December’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (MYEFO) upgraded Australia’s net overseas migration projection for 2024-25 from 260,000 to 340,000 (see below table). Every budget and MYEFO released by Labor since it was elected has badly underestimated Australia’s net overseas migration. Specifically: 2022-23: Began at 235,000, rose to 400,000, ended up being 535,500. 2023-24: Began at 215,000,
DXY is taking a well-earned breather. Australian dollar is threatening a bigger bounce. But the CNY concrete shoes will not come off. Oil is a worry. Copper is delusional again. Miners sagged. EM meh. Junk meh. Yields coming off. But stocks couldn’t follow through, except in Europe. Fed hawk Governer WAller was dovish. The inflation
Wall Street failed to advance on its latest surge overnight mainly due to a fall in tech stocks, led by Apple while European shares remained boisterous across most of the continent. The USD fell back against most of the undollars although Euro only advanced slightly on its new weekly high as Yen continued its own
Last month’s Guardian’s Essential Poll said the Albanese government was doing a poor job “increasing wages and workers’ rights”. This decline in purchasing power, the flipside of the cost-of-living crisis, is a key reason why Labor is trailing the Coalition in the polls ahead of the upcoming federal election. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was busy
Asian stock markets are somewhat mixed although local shares got a boost on a surprise uptick in the unemployment print that energised more RBA rate cut speculation. Meanwhile other FX volatility was centered around Yen that continues to firm against USD while the Australian dollar retraced back to the 62 cent level in what looks