I have warned repeatedly that Australian housing affordability will not improve by blanketing our cities with high-rise apartments, as planned by state and federal governments. The reason is simple: it costs too much to build apartments. Therefore, they cannot be delivered at an affordable price to buyers. The exorbitant cost of apartment construction was highlighted
Finally a relatively non-volatile trading session today although the newsflow remains weird with more Trumpian two-steps around tariffs on Chinese goods, while all eyes remain on the canary in the mine – the bond markets. The USD is still slowly weakening as it loses its reserve currency status with almost all the majors including gold
An oft-repeated mantra from the Trump regime is that tariffs in Trump’s first term barely affected inflation. Which is true. But the inflation environment was very different. The latest inflation data was out at the end of last week, and while it may have beaten expectations, it is not the type of inflation numbers that
The Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs have inflicted pain on the Australian dollar. At the close of business Friday, the Australian dollar was trading at just under 62 US cents, up from its multi-year low of 59.75 cents. The trade-weighted index (TWI), which measures the value of the Australian dollar relative to its most important
My favourite strategist is back. Macquarie strategist Viktor Shvets sees the potential for what he calls a “Lehman Brothers moment”. …Volatility indices and credit spreads are not at crisis point yet, Shvets says, but “it seems that short of abandoning current policies, the self-reinforcing loop of deleveraging – and there is no healthy deleveraging in
This election campaign has turned into a dumpster fire for Peter Dutton and the Coalition. After leading Labor on a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition collapsed in the polls, losing virtually every opinion poll since early March. The results of today’s Newspoll show little change, with the Coalition’s primary vote dropping to 35%—below the level
Morgan Stanley with the note. Investors are laser-focused on Beijing’s stimulus, as the record US tariff hikes and little room for near-term de-escalation mean rising downside to growth. We don’t expect immediate new stimulus. Beijing is likely to prioritize front-loading of the pre-announced Rmb2trn NPC package in 2Q.A more plausible timing for a Rmb1-1.5trn supplementary
To quote independent housing analyst Cameron Kusher, “Only in Australia would a government set up a housing fund that doesn’t build any new homes for several years and then might end up needing a bailout”. On Friday, it was reported that Labor’s signature Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), which was created with $10 billion of government
Over the weekend, we saw both sides of politics ‘jump the shark’ on housing policy. The Albanese government effectively announced a state-sponsored subprime mortgage scheme by promising to allow all first home buyers to purchase a home with only a 5% deposit, with the government guaranteeing up to 15% of the loan value, thereby eliminating
DXY is a falling meteor. Australian dollar crash up! Concrete boots did OK. Shorts were trimmed last week. Falling DXY is pushing up commods and gold. Mining relief. EM too. Spreads still stressed. Treasures no bueno. Stocks are doing a bit better. I am still watching Treasuries for where markets are going next. The stress