With the Victorian budget imploding, Treasurer Tim “Ponzi” Pallas has announced his resignation after a decade in job. “I’ve had my time for better or worse. I’ve tried my best”, he said. “Renewal is important, and after 10 years as Treasurer it is time for me to hand over the reins”. “Importantly, this will allow
Independent economist Tarric Brooker published the following breakdown of mining company tax receipts between 2015-16 and 2022-23: The data was derived from a May 2024 Minerals Council Report, which sourced its figures from the ATO and Ernst and Young estimates. A reader responded to Brooker with the following data showing the cost of the National
The latest labour force data for New Zealand showed that filled jobs fell by 0.7% in Q3, the second consecutive quarterly decline. The number of filled jobs also recorded their first annual decline in over a decade. Average earnings growth in New Zealand also declined in Q3, pushing annual growth to below 2%. By contrast, the
Last week, CBA published the following chart showing the detachment of Australia’s job growth from the nation’s GDP. CBA’s head of Australian economics, Gareth Aird, described the result as “a very unusual dynamic”. “Okun’s law, which is an empirically observed relationship between unemployment and GDP, is not in play at the moment. And most economists
Friday night was very calm for overseas markets following the ECB rate cuts with most action on bond markets as Wall Street basically slept through the session. European shares had scratch sessions across the continent as well while the USD was largely unchanged in direction as most undollars drifted lower. Euro stabilised somewhat while Yen
Last week, ABC’s Ian Verrender published an article on the “productivity conundrum” preventing the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) from cutting interest rates. “Like many other developed countries, our productivity growth has gone down the shoot”, wrote Verrender. “In many ways, ours has been even worse”. “Back in 2003, Australian labour productivity was averaging around
Alas, it is all so very predictable. The East Coast gas cartel is running riot as the European cold winter gives it the excuse. We are now roughly 600% higher than we should in our gas off-peak season. As night follows day, especially in Australian energy, wholesale electricity prices are exploding as well. Prices are
The Albanese government’s target to build 1.2 million homes over five years continues to flounder. On Friday, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) released data on new home sales, which declined in November to the lowest level since January 2024. The following chart from Justin Fabo at Antipodean Macro shows that new home sales have retraced
DXY is up, up, up. Consolidation over? AUD is approaching support at 63 and 62 and then it’s vacuum… Some speculators finally gave up on the losing losing ling but still oodles of room to fall. Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran… Dirt hosed. Mining despair. EM splat. Junk will eventually be a problem for stocks.
CoreLogic’s daily dwelling values index shows that Sydney’s housing correction has accelerated. Sydney dwelling values have declined by 0.4% over the past 28 days. The rate of decline has accelerated over the past month. The auction market has matched the decline in Sydney dwelling values, with clearance rates tanking. CoreLogic’s final auction report revealed that