The US jobs market is weak and getting weaker. The Friday BLS report has some dour implications for Australia. Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in August (+22,000) and has shown little change since April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. The unemployment rate, at 4.3 percent, also changed little in August. A job
The fake left is as dangerous as it is stupid. …a contribution from the strategist and former Kevin Rudd staffer Lachlan Harris stands out this week. Responding to Hugh White’s recent Quarterly Essay, Hard New World, Harris, a businessman and student of political communications, makes the case that the next great prime minister will be
On Sunday, I appeared on Freya Leach’s Sky News show, Freya Fires Up, to debate Kos Samaris on the merits of Australia’s migration system. The segment ended up being more of a polite discussion rather than a debate, given that we agreed on most things. Nevertheless, a list of potential discussion topics was sent beforehand,
The ferrous complex remains drunk as steel margins evaporate. And then there is this. S&P. Today, we are witnessing a resurgence in capital expenditure focused on iron ore, contrasting with the overall capital decline in the mining industry. Notably, a significant portion of this investment, focused on iron ore, is directed toward Guinea and the Simandou Blocks 1 & 2 and Simandou Blocks 3 & 4 projects. Simandou is a particularly high-grade deposit, with grades averaging 65.8%
The Market Ear on bulls versus bears. It’s like déjà vu all over again “The current set-up is very similar to where things stood a month ago. Recent stock market dip and recovery back to ATHs? Check. US equity positioning above average, but declining slightly? Check. HF gross leverage near highs? Check. Momentum performance choppy, but still near highs?
The Price is right. The federal opposition is in damage control following firebrand senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s claims the government is accepting “large numbers” of Indian migrants into Australia to bolster Labor’s vote. Polling strongly suggests that Jacinda Price is right (especially now she has said it!). Indian migrants voted strongly for Labor at the
Last month, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lowered the official cash rate (OCR) by 0.25% to 3.60%. This marked the third 75 bp rate cut this year. Most economists and financial markets have tipped the RBA to deliver another two 25 bp rate cuts by mid-2026. The associated decline in mortgage rates has improved housing
This is good from The Australian. …Manufacturing Australia, which counts BlueScope, Tomago Aluminium and CSR as members, told the government review that east coast-based manufacturers pay between $12 and $19 per gigajoule for gas compared with the US, where prices are $5 to $7/GJ in comparison. …The group said Australia must target a delivered gas
No surprise or upward Sharpie revision on Friday night as the actual US jobs print came out and was bad all over, with prior results also revised down, giving a clear run to a September rate cut by the Fed and possibly two more by the end of the year. Wall Street held steady as
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Being a renter in Australia has turned into the Hunger Games. The record surge in migration post-COVID has added extraordinary rental demand, illustrated neatly below by Justin Fabo at Antipodean Macro. As a result, capital city asking rents soared as more people competed for housing. At the end of 2024, Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) estimated that