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
Yesterday, I reported on an outlandish plan reported in the Economic Times of India, the Hindustan Times, the Business Standard, and other Indian media outlets to have Indian workers/migrants build Australian homes. “Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday said that India is in “deep negotiations” to create 1 million homes in Australia and has reached
Good on David Pocok for taking it on, but he’s talking nonsense. Independent ACT senator David Pocock said on Monday the pressure on the environment and infrastructure motivated many marchers on the weekend, who felt there was “no plan” underpinning the migrant intake. Albo has a very clear plan. It’s just that it sucks for
Overnight saw some calm return to risk markets as the new trading week got underway without US involvement as they had a long weekend, although we still got more bullying of the Federal Reserve by the Trump regime. The perceived loss of independence and the blowout in US fiscal budget continues to put pressure on
There are two primary reasons why the federal government loves ‘Big Australia’ immigration. First, immigration boosts the overall economy, as measured by headline GDP. Running a high immigration strategy enables the government to claim that it is an effective economic manager, even when per capita GDP growth is negative (as it currently is) and individual
It is clear that Australia is on the verge of another house price boom. As illustrated below by Alex Joiner from IFM Investors, both Cotality’s and PropTrack’s dwelling value series lifted strongly in August, continuing the run of strong results. “If you’re struggling to afford a home, the only worse news than the Cotality dwelling
Asian share markets are starting the trading week in very mixed fashion with Chinese stocks leading the way while Australian shares have pulled back with the absence of a lead from the US as they have a long weekend. The fallout from the Friday night decision that the Trump regime’s tariffs are actually illegal (do
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has slashed the official cash rate (OCR) by 2.5%, with another 0.5% of cuts expected by the end of 2026. As Justin Fabo of Antipodean Macro illustrates below, the decline in the OCR has cut the cost of new mortgages, which should have raised housing demand and driven up
Westpac with the forecast. • Australia’s recovery stalled over the first six months of 2025, with the economy expected to have grown 0.4%qtr in Q2 and just 1.3%yr in six-month annualised terms – way below the RBA’s updated trend estimate of +2.0%yr. • The extent of the pull back in public demand has surprised on
This is amusing to watch. Australia’s largest east coast exporter, Australia Pacific LNG in which Origin Energy owns a 27.5 per cent stake, is arguing for sweeping reforms that would rewire the domestic market and impose stricter obligations on rival producers to prioritise local buyers. By contrast, Santos — operator of the Gladstone LNG project