Wall Street reversed course again overnight on a slightly higher than expected consumer confidence print, with Nvidia shares jumping back and helping lift the NASDAQ yet again while European stocks gave up their early gains. The USD lifted slightly with focus on the Canadian Loonie as domestic inflation there spiked higher than expected, with Euro
Westpac has released a report on Australia’s economic outlook that highlights the underlying fragility of the economy. “The Australian economy limped into 2024, with economic activity expanding just 0.1% over the first three months of the year”, notes Westpac. “Over the year to the March quarter, the economy expanded 1.1%yr – the slowest pace since
DXY has very constructive ascending triangle pattern. If it breaks above 106, it is off to the races: AUD is hanging in there: North Asia is sliding inexorably: The oil squeeze is done: Back from whence you came, copper: Miners should be much lower given the outlook: EM holding support…so far: Junk lifted, good for
PropTrack’s dwelling values series shows that Brisbane dwelling values have surged by 68% since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, with detached house values rocketing by 72%: Unsurprisingly, the surge in values has led to Brisbane house owners experiencing the highest share of profit-making sales in the nation over the March quarter, according
The “Yes in My Backyard” (YIMBY) movement contends that easing planning regulations and saturating Australia’s cities with high-rise apartments can restore housing affordability. Their argument fails when you consider that Sydney’s and Melbourne’s dwelling compositions have changed rapidly this century amid the substantial increase in unit & apartment construction: As noted by RMIT’s David Hayward
Asian share markets have broadly lifted despite a falling Wall Street overnight with a weaker USD helping local currencies lift, except for Yen which remains hopelessly weak at record lows. The Australian dollar has pushed slightly higher to above the mid 66 cent level with mixed performance on commodity markets. Oil prices are still holding
Research undertaken by RBC economists Su-Lin Ong and Robert Thompson, reported in The AFR, has found that Australian households are saving much less than their global peers due to the impact of bracket creep and high mortgage repayments on their disposable income. RBC estimates that households saved just 0.9% of their disposable incomes in the
Bloomie has salutary story on copper: As copper surged to record highs last month, several senior Chinese traders started trying to contact western hedge fund managers whose names they’d only read in the press. For years, the veteran traders’ privileged insight into their own economy had given them an edge in the copper market, where
Labor energy policies have done this to the nation: A spokesperson for Aemo said the aim of Thursday’s notice was to signal the market faced elevated risks. Gas storage levels were slightly below those for this time of year compared with 2021 and 2022. Gas pipelines from Queensland were already at full capacity so there
Viktor Schvets at Macquarie is making more sense. In 1990s, Paul Krugman was advocating that Japan should embark on policies that are “credibly irresponsible; (must only look irresponsible but the world must be convinced that they are to carried out). In his view, this was the only way to shock Japan out of its liquidity