One of the focuses of last month’s Productivity Roundtable in Canberra was on ways to streamline regulations to increase the rate of housing construction to meet the Albanese government’s 1.2 million housing target. Danielle Wood, chair of the Productivity Commission (PC), told Roundtable attendees that there is a backlog of 30,000 projects awaiting approval, which
Asian share markets are seeing mixed results as traders await the return of US markets from their long weekend with the latest news about a US/Japan trade deal sending Yen lower without any real action. The chance of more rate cuts from both the BOJ and ECB firmed with the ratings agencies today but that
The latest dwelling value results from PropTrack show that Melbourne continues to lag the other major capital cities for price growth. Melbourne dwelling values rose by just 2.1% in the year to August, easily the softest growth among the state capitals. As illustrated in the following chart, Melbourne dwelling value growth has lagged the other
Deutsche with the note. Announcement of Cook’s removal President Trump announced the removal of Governor Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, citing “cause” due to alleged fraud in relation to mortgages she took out on properties before her appointment to the Board. This announcement was the culmination of intensifying pressure from the administration in recent
The Market Ear on a bubble breather. Back to work Here are the latest positioning and sentiment data from the weekend. We could not really see a trend or a theme so we divided into the good, the bad and the really boring…. Keep on improving Globally, stock – specific news sentiment has improved consistently
The ferrous complex is breaking again, right on time for seasonality. Rebar is in freefall. HRC will follow. Iron ore is next. Scuttlebutt is bearish. Steel stockpiles at major Chinese mills jumped 4% between August 11-20 to reach 15.67 million tons, according to official data. This inventory buildup signals softer domestic consumption despite targeted production
The fake left Guardian inadvertently reveals its hand today. The contingent of neo-Nazis arrived at Flinders Street station about an hour before Sunday’s anti-immigration rally was due to start. A hundred or so men, dressed in black, strode across Princes Bridge in a bloc, weaving through the large crowd that had already gathered under a sea of
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released dwelling approvals data for July on Monday, reporting 16,153 trend approvals for the month, the highest volume since August 2022. Despite the rebound, approvals tracked 3,847 (19%) approvals behind the National Housing Accord’s five-year target, which requires 20,000 homes to be built every month. In the year to
With the release of Canada’s second quarter GDP figures, it was revealed that the economy had fallen back into contraction in headline terms for the first time since the third quarter of 2023, with quarterly GDP falling by 0.5%. In the words of Pedro Antunes, Conference Board of Canada’s Chief Economist: Canada is in “recession
Yesterday’s business indicators for tomorrow’s GDP were pretty awful. Key data items – Seasonally adjusted Mar 25 to Jun 25 (%) Jun 24 to Jun 25 (%) Sales of goods and services (chain volume measures) Manufacturing 0.2 -1.5 Wholesale trade 1.7 4.0 Inventories (chain volume measures) 0.1 0.8 Company gross operating profits -2.4 -3.3 Wages and