Wall Street corrected sharply overnight led mainly by tech stocks as the NASDAQ fell back nearly 2% in response to a variety of concerns – mainly the looming spectre of stagflation – but also some disappointment around earnings at the orc-stronghold of Palantir. The USD is pushing higher against all the majors with the Canadian
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released housing approvals data for September, which recorded 16,360 trend approvals, a 0.9% increase from August. It was the strongest trend monthly approvals since February 2022. Even so, approvals in September were 3,640 (18%) behind the National Housing Accord’s five-year target of building 20,000 homes per month. In the
Last week, I reported on the latest annual national accounts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which showed that the total value of residential land in Australia increased by 7.0% during the 2024-25 financial year to a record $8.3 trillion. The next chart shows that total residential land values in Australia have skyrocketed from
Not much action on Asian markets in today’s session with local markets pivoting on the RBA meeting where as expected the boffins of Martin Place held fire again and put out most chances of further rate cuts in the future. This stabilised the Australian dollar somewhat, in comparison to other undollars which are seeing some
Following last week’s CPI inflation shocker, financial markets abandoned hopes of further rate cuts. As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) chose to hold the official cash rate steady at 3.60%, with its commentary turning hawkish. The Bank’s statement noted that “inflation has picked up”, with the 1.0% trimmed mean inflation print of 1.0%
DXY has a juicy double bottom and is threatening to break out. AUD is under pressure. CNY too. Oil and gold are becalmed. The rising DXY is pressuring metals. Big miners ouch! EM is OK but will struggle if DXY rises. Junk is sending out a warning. Yields are still threatening to back up. Stocks
Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that the policy-relevant trimmed mean inflation surged by 1.0% in the September quarter to be 3.0% higher year-on-year—the top of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) target band. Inflation pressures were broad-based, with the share of CPI items growing above 3% rising to 50% in Q3, up
The Market Ear with more. Weird market The S&P has stayed above its 50-day moving average for 128 straight days — one of the longest streaks ever, but at the same time more stocks are hitting 52-week lows than highs. Source: GS S&P Streaking We made it past the 5-months-in-a-row mark (which has been a
Goldman with the note. Government Shutdown: Much Closer to the End Than to the Beginning2 The partial shutdown of the federal government looks likely to last longer than any prior shutdown, mainly because there is little political pressure to end it. A greater share of the public holds Republicans and President Trump responsible for the
Alan Kohler is one of the few ABC journalists willing to openly and honestly discuss Australia’s immigration system, which is the fundamental driver of the nation’s world-beating population growth. The following video presentation by Kohler explained how the surge in international students in Australia is one of the key drivers of the nation’s high immigration-driven