Tuesday’s federal budget revealed that the cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will reach $50.8 billion next financial year, surpassing the $51 billion allocated to the defence budget. While the NDIS has created a significant financial burden on the federal budget, it is mainly responsible for driving Australia’s job growth and maintaining the unemployment
The jaws remain wide. There is good news in steel output. Hot metal production in March increased by 56,700 tons to 2.3626 million tons month-on-month. This is well above last year for the time being. However, it is coming on the top of a very slow January and February. Worldsteel. World crude steel production for
I reported this week on how the nation’s residential housing stock reached a record $11,032.2 billion at the end of 2024, with the average dwelling valued at $976,800. The average dwelling value of nearly one million dollars has created a nation of paper millionaires. It is also a key reason why Australian households are ranked among
Recall that Tuesday’s federal budget forecast a significant slowing of net overseas migration over the forward estimates. Net overseas migration is projected to slow to 335,000 this financial year, then to 260,000 in 2025-26, and 225,000 in 2026-27. As a result, Australia’s population growth forecasts have also been downgraded. Australia’s population is projected to grow
DXY faded. AUD was stable. Lead boots are heavy. Gold is melting up. Oil is a pest. Alwyas sell copper before Goldman does. Miners meh. Em meh. More junk stress please! Curve steepened, though. Stocks fell. US pending home sales were dreadful again, while initial unemployment claims are showing no sign of DOGE damage outside
The ACCC is in panic mode about the gas shortage. We forecast a shortfall of 9 PJ in the east coast market over July-September 2025 (quarter 3) if LNG producers export all their uncontracted gas, and a surplus of 6 PJ if they only export their anticipated spot sales. This is a 22 PJ decline
More tariff fallouts overnight as the April 2 deadline looms with Trump whining about Canadian-EU collaboration in the latest round of threats, while stocks put in slight selloffs amid the low volatility reactions. The USD pulled back ever so slightly against Euro and Pound Sterling but remains firm against Yen while the Australian dollar was
CBA head of Australian economics, Gareth Aird, has explained why he believes the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will cut the official cash rate at its May monetary meeting. Aird noted that “the recent run of domestic data has on balance been a little softer than the RBA forecasts imply”. The softer readings include the
I was wrong to have written off Peter Dutton and the Coalition. On Thursday night, Dutton gave his budget reply speech. And while there were some minor things I disagreed with, I believe he got the biggest policy issues right. Below are the announcements I liked, followed by those I didn’t. Liked alot: East Coast
Noise around the latest tariff tirade from Trump, this time on cars from – well everywhere – has not really affected Asian stock markets that much relatively speaking as regional concerns outweigh the dummy spitting from the White House. The USD is lifting slightly against the major currency pairs, particularly Euro while the Australian dollar