A wise man once said that “Hope is not a strategy.” But that isn’t entirely correct. As the chart below of historic Reserve Bank wage growth forecasts reveals, hope can be a strategy; it’s just not a particularly good one. The latest hope from the Reserve Bank is that the market economy can generate sufficient
By Lucinda Jerogin, Associate Economist at CBA The Minutes of the July RBA Monetary Policy Board Meeting re-enforced a cautious Board who wanted to wait and see quarterly inflation data before resuming its rate-cutting cycle. News offshore was dominated by trade headlines as nations worked to secure deals with the US before the August 1
Public submissions to the Governments Productivity Roundtable closed yesterday. All that is left for the public to consider are the outcomes. Ultimately the Productivity Round Table is unlikely to achieve all that much because it isn’t set up to achieve anything, and is set up to provide a spectacle in lieu of effective policy. Therein lay
Australian home values reached a new record high in June and are expected to continue growing. The single-best leading indicator of price growth—auction clearance rates—has bounced, suggesting buyer demand is increasing. As illustrated below, final auction clearance rates are tracking at their highest levels in more than a year across Sydney, Melbourne, and the combined
Ah, The Guardian, home of hypocrisy. Mark Humphries has moved house five times in the past seven years. First was the place in the Sydney suburb of Turramurra he had to vacate because it was, “forgive me for saying this – leaking like a giant breast from the ceiling”. Next came a house so damp,
DXY is trying again. The AUD uptrend is intact. Lead boots got heavier. Gold needs more Trump. Metals flamed out. EM too. Junk is bullish. Yields faded. Stocks ATH. The big bear short on CFTC driving price gains reached -81k contracts, which is approaching very bearish terrain. AUD had a down day, but so long
International Reading: This company’s CEO made 6,666x more than its typical worker – CNN Gen Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-grads—a sign that the higher education payoff is dead – Fortune The American Dream is no longer red, white, and blue—it’s gray. There are now more homebuyers over
Asian share markets are snapping back after rallying most of the week with the USD pushing higher after making gains against most of the undollars overnight as the Trump regime indicates it probably won’t fire Fed Chair Powell. Maybe. Japanese inflation numbers were as expected but still too high above the BOJ target sending Yen
Last month, I visited Harvey Norman in search of a replacement for my decade-old coffee machine. The sales assistant told me that sales of home coffee machines were booming, presumably because cost-of-living concerns had made barista-made coffee from a cafe unaffordable. I have also observed growing lines at the local Coles Express, where I regularly
One just has to love and laugh at the Aussie political economy. AFR. Productivity Commission chairwoman Danielle Wood is recommending the Albanese government overhaul company tax, speed up planning approvals for infrastructure projects and embrace artificial intelligence to lift the economy out of stagnation. Australian full-time workers would be at least $14,000 better off by