More hesitation on risk markets as the weekend news of increased tensions on Chinese and US trade, including more off the cuff tariff announcements from the TACO-in-Chief unsettles the new start to the trading month. Currency markets area again winding up strength against the USD in response with the Australian dollar breaking out and accelerating
Last week, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand lowered the official cash rate (OCR) to 3.25%, down 2.25% from the recent peak. The vote in favour of cutting rates was overwhelming, with five members voting for and only one against. The Reserve Bank’s guidance, presented below, suggests that the OCR will bottom at around 2.75%.
This is a fairly accurate assessment from Bloomberg on why Australia is stuffed. They even manage to address the externalities of immigration without getting wowserish about it. A few quick points I will add: Restoring Australian manufacturing now would take a war. At 5% of GDP, it’s all but gone. Therefore, there is no productivity
University of Melbourne associate professor Milad Haghani argues that utes and SUVs should pay higher registration fees to account for the damage they do to roads because of their weight. “Bigger cars mean bigger costs for everyone else – it’s only fair those costs are reflected in how we price their use of public roads”,
Chinese property is still stuffed. Therefore, so too is Chinese consumer confidence. Those arguing China will become a consumer economy are delusional. It’s all the same thing. They throw money into local government sinkholes. They build stuff they don’t need. They trade as much as possible. And they cheat when someone tries to change it.
The Albanese government is captured and is gutless: A gas reservation scheme that is implemented only on a prospective basis would do little to solve Australia’s east coast gas shortage, experts warn. Energy minister Chris Bowen on Sunday ruled out retrospective reservation of gas but left the door open to prospective changes to “see what
The latest data from the Department of Education shows that there were a record 1,095,298 international students enrolled in Australia at the end of 2024, an annual increase of 13%. There were also a record 571,986 new enrolments at the end of 2024. Julie Hare from The AFR reports that university tuition fees from international
Steel prices keep falling. Is it any wonder? Flat steel is…flat… Long is still sinking with the property Titanic. Output is crap again. 2025 is shaping as another 2-3% downward shift in China steel output, unless authorities push it to 5%, which they should!
CBA senior economist Stephen Wu created the following chart showing the divergence between various population measures: According to Wu: Next week’s National Accounts release (4/6) will contain an updated estimate of population growth, which is driven by net overseas migration (NOM). The already-released retail trade data show estimates of population growth will be downwardly revised
The Market Ear with a May cleanup. Marvelous May We just completed the single best month of May for stocks in the last 35 years. As we have highlighted over and over again during the past few weeks, sentiment and positioning have been very light, which of course has helped the rally. However, now the