The Market Ear on gold. UBS on gold 1. World gold Council’s 2Q data shows a slight slowdown in central bank gold buying, but 43% of reserve managers still plan to increase holdings (vs. 29% in 2024). 2. Investment demand is strong, led by ETFs and bar/coin buying. 3. De-dollarization, sanctions, Fed doubts, and geopolitics
Millie Muroi from The SMH noted that Australians are working more hours to compensate for declining productivity. “Given productivity—the amount of goods and services produced for a given level of resources, including hours worked—has stagnated over the past decade, Australians may be compensating by putting in more legwork”, she wrote. “According to the OECD, Australians
The Albanese government cannot be trusted on immigration. In 2023, former Home Affairs Minister turned Housing Minister Clare O’Neil delivered a keynote address to the AFR Workforce Summit, where she bemoaned the blowout in temporary migrants under the former Coalition government: Today, really for the first time in our modern history, our uncapped, unplanned temporary
Risk markets moved on geopolitical and outright political shenigans overnight with Apple pushing the NASDAQ over 1% higher while possible good news over Ukraine – via the US bullying India into submission over its Russian oil purchases – and more speculation about changes at the US Federal Reserve kept the USD significantly weak. Only Yen
DXY is dropping again. Sticking with the recent rally pattern, AUD is not rising as fast. Lead boots are stable. Gold is firm, oil weak. Metals tracked DXY. Big bear intact. EM rebound. Junk too. Yields firmed. BTFD! The AUD has resumed rising with broader risk. Or, should we say, resumed inflating with the broader
On the 16th of June 2015, Donald Trump declared that he was going to run for the presidency of the United States. At the time, it was a source of jokes for late-night hosts and a target of ridicule by Democrats riding high following two consecutive strong presidential election victories for Barack Obama. For those
Green across the board for Asian stocks today despite the poor lead from Wall Street overnight, basically on speculation that the US Federal Reserve is likely to ease in September against dwindling domestic conditions in the US economy. The USD lost further ground against the majors particularly Kiwi but also the Australian dollar which has
The Market Ear on the stock stall. SPX levels SPX is trading inside the trend channel that has been in place since late May. Short term support at 6300 (futures), which is the lower part of the channel. 50 day comes in around the 6200 area. Resistance: ATHs. Source: LSEG Workspace NASDAQ levels NASDAQ is
Statistics New Zealand on Tuesday released Q2 labour force data, which reported a decline in employment and a rise in both unemployment and underemployment. As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, overall employment in New Zealand declined by 0.1% in Q2 and was 0.9% lower over the year. New Zealand’s unemployment rate rose
The Productivity Commission is taking a rosy view of AI. AI will likely raise productivity, but there is ongoing debate about the magnitude of this effect. Studies suggest AI could increase multifactor factor productivity between 0.5% to 13% over the next decade (0.05 to 1.3 percentage points annually). After examining the assumptions underlying these studies,