The iron ore jaws are opening wide. Put your hand in if you dare. The widest in three years, in fact. Scuttlebutt is excited! Iron ore futures rallied on Wednesday to their highest in multiple months, boosted by hopes of improving demand in top consumer China following Beijing’s pledge of easing monetary policy this year.
During Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the U.S. presidency, campaign strategist James Carville coined a now-legendary catchphrase. Those four simple words were: “It’s the economy, stupid”. While originally intended as a campaign motto to maintain on-message, it became a de facto campaign slogan that remains a point of focus to this day. But in the
Yesterday’s monthly inflation number was softer than expected, easing fears of a February rate hike. Summing up, headline CPI was lower than Westpac had anticipated, coming in at 0.0% for the month as opposed to its projection of 0.4%. This puts Westpac’s current December quarter nearcast of 0.6%qtr for the Headline CPI and 0.8%qtr for
As things currently stand, the Albanese government possesses the largest majority achieved by any postwar federal Labor government at the ballot box, holding 94 out of the lower house’s 150 seats. Meanwhile, unlike other governments of the recent past that were heavily reliant on a broad range of Senate crossbenchers, Labor needs only the support
DXY has shown signs of life since El Trumpo crashed the world order. AUD has nonetheless been riding the Asian assets party. Which ended yesterday. Gold is overbought again. Oil is doomed. The metals blowoff collapsed under its own weight. Big miners are parabolic. EM in free air. None of it is supported by spreads.
Wall Street stumbled amid a mixed bag of economic releases as traders pivot towards Friday’s NFP print. US 10 year Treasury yields remain elevated at their recent monthly highs but a little too quiet, while the USD is gaining strength against the majors particularly Euro and Canadian Loonie while the Australian dollar has slipped to
Australian property has benefited from numerous support mechanisms and government interventions to bolster its fortunes in the years since the pandemic began. $188 billion in funding from the RBA to the banks at just 0.1% interest, facilitating the rise of 3-year fixed-rate mortgages at under 2%. This led to 40% of all Australian mortgages being
Asian share markets are not doing well despite a strong lead from Wall Street overnight with commodity volatility one of the culprits as oil prices move lower as silver explodes higher. Currency markets are seeing a little bit of stability with USD losing some ground against Yen but outperforming Euro and Loonie. The November inflation
An American madman is loose. At a press conference on his plane as he returned to Washington for a new political year he entertained the idea of targeting another four nations. He started with Colombia, which he said had a leader who “likes making cocaine” but is “not going to be doing it very long”.
Everybody wants a royal commission into anti-Semitism, apparently. With the government’s reasons for opposing a royal commission being widely panned and the inquiry being backed by leading figures in the business, sporting, legal and security sectors, the issue was scheduled to be debated earlier this week at a meeting of the national security committee of