A surge in Australia’s unemployment rate is the one factor that could force the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to cut rates sooner and deeper. The latest Statement of Monetary Policy from the RBA forecast that Australia’s unemployment rate would peak at only 4.3% and remain at this level until late 2027. However, Thursday’s labour
Chinese inflation remains bogged. The CPI fell MoM and is going nowhere YoY. PPI is similar. As anti-involution weighs on domestic demand, I expect prices to keep falling. The real problem is unresolved. The black hole of real estate. Golden Week needs to be renamed something less auspicious. New property sales are down again for
While there are an increasing number of issues where the views and sensibilities of the public are entirely at odds with those of the political class, one issue arguably stands out where the perspectives of politicians and the electorate are in two entirely different postcodes: immigration. For the longest time, the immigration debate was an
Australia has the second-largest concentration of international students in the world, behind the tiny nation of Luxembourg. Temporary visa data from the Department of Home Affairs shows that student and graduate visa holders comprised 3% of Australia’s population—almost one in 30 people—in the June quarter of 2025. This was up from 2.6% at the pre-pandemic
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday released data showing that the nation’s fertility rate—i.e., the average number of registered births per woman aged 15 to 49 years—fell to a record low of 1.481, which is down from 1.795 a decade ago and roughly half the level of the 30 years between 1944 and
The ferrous complex continues to bifurcate, with steel getting flushed while iron ore enjoys the good times. CISA data for early October rebounded after the Hebei shutdown, but inventories soared 8%. Mills are still overproducing. Goldman explains it. …change in demand patterns, driven by the need for blast furnaces to reduce steel costs, has led
In this week’s podcast, Nucleus Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer, Damien Klassen, examines why Australia’s stock market looks expensive compared to global peers—and whether the nation’s limited exposure to high-growth tech and AI could see it left behind once again. Join us for the podcast at 12.30 pm AEDST. Can’t make it to the live series? Catch
Trade war tensions are keeping most risk markets contained but not in selling mode as Wall Street lifted again despite sentiment around the US economy as the latest Biege Book from the Fed was released overnight. The USD continues to decline as Fed members are still broadcasting a softer economy, particularly labour markets as ICE
DXY is fading again. AUD has bounced but not very convincingly. CNY stable. That is a golden parabola. AI metals not so much. RIO has broken the big bear downtrend. EM strong bounce. Junk not so much. Yields firmed. Bulls returned. One should expect more volatility as we approach the Trump/XI walkover. The balance of
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released dwelling construction data for the June quarter of 2025, which suggested that Australia’s housing shortage has worsened. The number of dwellings that commenced construction in the June quarter declined by 4.4% to 45,156, driven by a 6.6% fall in detached housing: However, over the year to the June