China data over the weekend should encourage nobody. Goldman. China’s export growth remained solid in April despite the implementation of US reciprocal tariffs, significantly above the consensus expectations, and import growth also surprised to the upside (exports: +8.1% yoy, imports: -0.2% yoy). The resilient export growth was partly due to a low base last year.
Australian households have suffered one of the largest declines in real disposable incomes in the developed world. The Q4 2024 national accounts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that real per capita household disposable income had declined by around 8% from its mid-2022 peak, the sharpest decline on record. The ABS released its
This is amusing. AFR. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned that fixing Australia’s flatlining productivity will require a third term of government, as he ruled out accepting every proposal that will arise from a crisis review into the problem that he commissioned before the election. It will take Treasurer Chalmers an infinite number of terms to
The Market Ear on the rally. Mind the gap between the bearish flow and the price Hedge fund bearishness continued this past week with about 1z net selling across regions. HF net leverage also remains quite low – at 2nd %-tile on 12m basis for Eq L/S funds and 30th %-tile on 5yr basis for them.
Remember, gas often sets the price of electricity in the wholesale market, so this debate is immense. The Australian. A sweeping review of Australia’s east coast gas market slated to begin in mid-2025 is shaping up as the economy’s last realistic chance to avert a looming energy crisis that industry leaders say could have widespread
New Zealand’s unemployment rate rose to 5.1% in Q4 2024, up from 4.8% in Q3 2024. In comparison, Australia’s unemployment rate was 3.9% in Q4 2024 (4.1% in March), the widest gap since Q3 2012. The latest SEEK employment also shows that the number of job ads in New Zealand has fallen heavily from the
State and federal government plans to plaster our cities with high-rise apartments will not improve Australian housing affordability and will ultimately degrade liveability. The reasons are simple: constructing apartments is too expensive. Consequently, buyers cannot purchase them at a reasonable price. As Michael Matusik illustrates above, detached houses and townhouses are far less expensive to
The e61 Institute think tank released an analysis showing how baby bonus handed to parents by the Howard government worked to stimulate births, at least initially. In 2004, the Howard government implemented a universal Baby Bonus—$3,000 per child after birth, later boosted to $4,000 and finally $5,000—to encourage couples to “have one for mum, one
Currency pairs respond to geopolitical events like trade disputes and wars. These aspects often shake global economies and encourage different FX pairs to swing dramatically. If you are a forex trader or plan to try out this venture, remember that. A good example of a geopolitical event that has significantly impacted currency pairs is the
Australian dwelling prices have tracked sideways recently after experiencing a bounce following the 0.25% interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in February. CoreLogic’s daily dwelling values index has reported only a 0.2% increase in values at the combined 5-city level over the past 28 days, with Sydney and Melbourne recording rises