Victoria is drowning in debt, infrastructure projects are all over time and billions over budget, and the hospital system is collapsing, yet the state’s senior bureaucrats are “failing upwards” and being rewarded with hefty pay rises. The Victorian Independent Remuneration Tribunal last week announced pay rises of up to 4.5% for 1600 people in senior
Earlier this month, consultancy Infometrics warned that New Zealand faces a “brain drain” as prime 25-44 aged residents move to Australia in search of work and better paying jobs. Infometrics noted that Australia’s unemployment rate was lower than New Zealand’s in the first quarter of this year. This was a departure from the average rate
The latest edition of the UBS Global Wealth Report shows that Australia now boasts 1.9 million US-dollar millionaires, whose combined wealth is now $US5.4 trillion ($8 trillion). UBS has forecast that the number of US-dollar millionaires will rise by 21% to more than 2.3 million by 2028, due to factors such as rising house prices
Are we in bubble territory yet? Not braodly. But AI is getting there. CBA is already there. The Market Ear has more. The Messi* of bull markets 1. Megacap Tech is +50% YTD, good for the second best 6-month start in its history. For context, last year was the best 6-month start: +54% 2. NDX
Morgan Stanley with the first sensible sell-side statement on Chinese property I have read for a while. The property market is not stabilising The adjustment in the property sector has been a key drag to economic activity since it began in 2021. From our perspective, the most important indicator that we are watching is the
Bloombergo is hopeless: Iron ore prices are likely to stay in three digits for the rest of 2024, insulated to a large degree from China’s faltering economy by cost support that kicks in at around $100 a ton. But that could change from next year as a wave of cheap supply starts to build in
DXY was soft last night: AUD held its ground: The uptrend versus North Asia is a powerful warning that AUD can’t get far: Oil held: Commods fell: Not sure why miners were bid: EM has taken the Fed hint: It would be nice if junk joined the party: But yields are waiting too: Stocks only
Overnight markets were very ebullient as the latest Fedspeak combined with buoyant tech stocks saw risk markets rise despite tonight’s potentially risky US CPI print. The USD is somewhat mixed against the majors with Euro looking a bit better while some hawkish BOE notions are seeing a bigger bid in Pound Sterling. Kiwi is down
Last month, prominent immigration propagandist and managing director of the Australian Housing and Research Institute, Michael Fotheringham, touted group housing as the solution to Australia’s housing crisis. “We are consuming more houses for the number of people we have. That is a bigger driver for shortfall in housing than migration”. “The number of people per
Australian households suffered one of the world’s steepest declines in real per capita household disposable incomes last year: Australians have likewise recorded one of the sharpest declines in real per capita since the start of the pandemic: The March quarter national accounts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that annual real per capita