After a months-long rebound, Westpac’s monthly consumer sentiment index crashed back to a 6-month low in September as hopes of deep interest rate cuts faded. Westpac’s Head of Australian Macro-Forecasting, Matthew Hassan, explains the results below. Key Points: Westpac Consumer Sentiment Index declines 3.5% to 92.1 in October. Optimism about outlook for family finances fades.
Energy is the bedrock of a modern economy. Without affordable and reliable energy, an economy will experience cost inflation across the supply chain. The energy-intensive manufacturing sector will also shrink as it can no longer break a profit and compete against cheaper imports. Australia’s economy has experienced soaring energy costs—both electricity and gas prices—which are
I consider the video-sharing platform YouTube to be one of the most useful and powerful educational tools available. Every day, I utilise YouTube to learn about topics or to troubleshoot problems. My teenage daughter regularly uses YouTube ‘How-to’ videos to learn about arts and crafts, solve math problems, fix computer issues, learn about history, do video
Last week, shadow home affairs minister Andrew Hastie resigned from the Coalition’s frontbench following frustration that he would have no input into the party’s immigration policy. Hastie argues that “uncontrolled migration” has been a major contributor to the decline in housing affordability in Australia, alongside infrastructure congestion and other issues. However, shadow housing and productivity
Looking at any number of indicators of health for households within the Australian economy, the news is hardly stellar. Real wages are at levels last seen in late 2011 and if the RBA’s projected rate of growth out into the future is realised, the pre-Covid peak will be reached in the mid-2030s. Meanwhile, growth in
I wrote last week about how the taxation of tobacco is one of Australia’s biggest policy failures. The federal government has repeatedly raised tobacco taxes to discourage smoking. Yet, the Australian Medical Association has warned that the availability of cheaper, illegal tobacco has led to a sharp rise in smoking rates, alongside booming organised crime
From the Market Ear: Kamikaze The Japanese 30 year has risen sharply over the past few years. Is this a similar break out move like we saw earlier this year? Gold loves it Gold loves rising Japanese 30 year yields… The streak Gold prices have now posted their 8th consecutive quarterly gain, the third-longest streak
It’s rare that any more than a month or two goes by without Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioning that he grew up in public housing. Every now and then it’s casually trotted out, perhaps as an attempt to connect with everyday voters that many in the ‘Canberra Bubble’ increasingly find themselves detached from. Meanwhile, the
Last week, the government body Build Skills Australia released a report claiming that there simply aren’t enough tradespeople to meet Labor’s target to build 240,000 homes a year. Build Skills Australia shows that Australia’s rate of construction per new resident has collapsed, despite the volume of homes built over the past 20 years (174,000 dwellings
Point Lonsdale sunrise, Victoria AUD/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD Gold WTI Brent Australia 200 US S&P 500 UK100 Japan 225
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