Local gas prices are still outrageous, above $13Gj. Electricity prices have come down with gas but also still nosebleed. With futures showing the coming price retail hikes. Finally, today, a kick-arse chart by John Kemp showing what expensive gas does to an advanced manufacturing base. Example Germany. GERMANY’s energy-intensive manufacturing output was down by 22%
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) February Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) forecast that the wage price index would record 3.2% growth for the year ended Q4 2024. On Wednesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the Q4 2024 wage price index, which met the RBA’s expectations, coming in at 0.7% for the quarter
Westpac with the note. Leading Index growth rate lifts to 0.58%, a 2½ year high. Above-trend momentum is becoming more convincing. Reads point to a gradual recovery rather than a sudden surge. All components contributing positive to growth signal. The start of 2025 has seen a continued improvement in Australia’s growth pulse. The latest rise
MB has long questioned the shady relationship between our universities’ reliance on international student revenue and university rankings, which we label a “Ponzi scheme”. The federal government and Australian universities established a structure to attract huge volumes of full-fee-paying overseas students through two channels. First, the Australian government offers the world’s most generous student visa
Since COVID, it has been clear that stock market cycles have dramatically accelerated (in truth before that as liquidity drives speed). Each twitch in the underlying global economy is traded on high-octane moves that exaggerate minor moves in the underlying economy. Right now, we have a broadening global stock cycle on the thesis that global
If Labor loses the upcoming federal election, it will be due to two key issues: the cost of living and housing affordability. The latest True Issues survey from JWS Research shows that the cost of living (58%) and housing supply and affordability (30%) were the two issues voters wanted the federal government to focus on.
The rotting fishhead AFR launched a stingingly politicised campaign to prevent monetary easing, and its journos and hangers-on were all wrong. Unsurprisingly. If all you can see is politics, then you’re so busy gaslighting everybody that you have no idea what is going on fundamentally. Enter Michael Stutchbury, the Rotten Fishhead himself, where the stench
DXY is back on strong second-tier data. AUD puked the RBA. Lead boots sinking once more. Gold is in a crazy blowoff. Copper popper. Miners yawn. EM Deepsuckered. Junk maybe. Yields up. Stocks firm. Pretty boring action. The AUD is not listening to the relentlessly stupid RBA hawks. Why would it be when their forecasting
Wall Street returned from its long weekend of anti-Trump protests and more aircraft crashes with a very staid session, unable to push to a new record high while over in Europeland, the German DAX made a new record high amid the push for big increases in defence spending. The USD is slowly coming back against
The Productivity Commission (PC) released a research paper entitled Housing Construction Productivity: Can we Fix it?, which tells a story of decades of poor performance. The PC found that building times for new homes have risen significantly in the last decade, and less than half (-53%) as many homes are being built per hour worked