The last few months have seen a vicious backlash to the Albanese government’s proposed caps on international students. For example, immigration influencer Abul Rizvi described the caps as a “recipe for chaos”, whereas Universities Australia Chief Executive Officer Luke Sheehy labelled the caps “short-sighted and politically expedient”, as well as economically damaging. Amid the noise
The Market Ear on a gathering storm for AI. AI can trade down too The AI trade is under increasing scrutiny. The average stock involved in the infrastructure build-out of AI has returned 26% YTD, but stocks with enabled revenues fell by 19% between February and May. Goldman says that investors are increasingly concerned about
Steel and iron ore futures both popped a little yesterday as we approach the Third Plenum next week: Dalian was similar: Coking coal: This price action appears purely tactical to me. Iron ore could and should be $10 lower just to restore margins to mills. Let alone $20 to begin squeezing high cost producers. In
DXY got spanked last night: AUD popped but dropped: North Asia took off: Oil and gold up: Base metals sold on deflation: Miners meh: EM rocket: Junk a bit: With US yields finally break the uptrend? Stocks sold the first cut: JPM wraps the US CPI: Sticky inflation is coming unglued The Jue CPI report
The Albanese government continues to lie and gaslight its way out of the housing crisis. Check out the below spin from Labor MP Julian Hill claiming “action on multiple front” is needed “to accelerate supply”: Action on housing is urgent. There’s no magic fix, it requires action on multiple fronts to accelerate new supply. Social
A week ago, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its household spending indicator for May, which showed that consumers continue to cut back. Overall household spending increased by just 0.1% over the year to May, suggesting a decline of around 6% in real per capita terms. The decline in household spending is replicated in
The very positive lead from Wall Street has translated into green across the board here in Asia as all stock markets have advanced in the absence of economic news and events. That may change tonight with the latest German and US core inflation prints. The Australian dollar has hit a six month high as it
The Productivity Commission (PC) has released new data on income mobility. It shows that, on average, each generation has earned more than the previous one, due to the nation’s long-term economic growth. Two-thirds of people born between 1976 and 1982, known as Xennials, earn more than their parents, according to the PC. However, gains have
With gas prices stuck permanently above Albo’s $12Gj price floor: His new power shock is going to the moon! We are not going to top out for another month somewhere around $170Mw/h, a record for quarterly average power prices outside of the Ukraine war profiteering shock. As you would expect, electricity futures are up 15%
There’s another inflation panic at the AFR: Australian consumers and businesses will pay more for everything from chocolate and sofas to mining equipment as shipping crises in the Red Sea and Asia fuel the worst freight delays since the pandemic and threaten to stoke local inflation. The continuing threat of attacks on commercial ships by