Asian share markets are being impacted by domestic events with the BOJ broadcasting some dovish moves while local retail sales actually pushed the Australian dollar higher alongside local stocks, despite a lack of a positive lead from Wall Street overnight. Oil prices are trying to claw back recent losses but Brent crude is stalled just
Here’s the chart: BTC does not appear to have much of a relationship with gold, though it could be argued it is still in the market share phase of development so the relationship would not be symmetric. Recent ETFs will give that process, if it is such a thing, a boost. For those wanting me
While overall CPI inflation continues to moderate faster than the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) expectations, Jarden chief economist Carlos Cacho warned that ongoing strong housing inflation, especially rents, poses a barrier to returning inflation to the target band of 2-3%. Cacho said that he expects rents to grow at an annual pace of 7%
Last year, we read multiple headlines claiming that investors were selling their properties, which was supposedly exacerbating the rental crisis by reducing stock. For example, PropTrack Director of Economic Research Cameron Kusher, warned in November that “investors continue to exit the market, which is keeping the overall stock of rental properties low”. Ray White’s September
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales data for January, which rose by 1.1% over the month to be also 1.1% higher year-on-year: The result disappointed economists’ expectations of a 1.5% monthly rebound. It also suggests that retail sales volumes fell heavily over the year when adjusted for CPI inflation (circa 4%)
Via the ABS comes Private Capex Expectations. Estimate 1 for 2024-25 is $145.6b This is 12.6% higher than Estimate 1 for 2023-24 These numbers are pretty good, given the slowing economy. But you must remember that average realisation ratios tend to slow the growth with each new update. Much of this survey would have been
The latest OECD figures show how Australian living standards have collapsed since the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008. The next chart shows that Australia’s GDP per capita has grown more slowly than the OECD since Q1 2007. Australia’s GDP per capita grew by 16.6% between 2007 and 2023, versus 17.3% across the OECD average:
The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has made its pre-budget submission to Treasury, labelling it as a ‘reclaiming our competitiveness’ submission. Amongst other things, the BCA is calling on the government to cap real expenditure growth at an annual 2%, adopt a single payroll tax system, and cut regulation and spending. With Australia falling from
Hoocoodanode? Certainly not SEEK’s immigration fanboy, Matt Cowgill, who writes: Advertised salary growth is cooling in line with the labour market, but remains robust at 4.5% annually. Blah, blah, blah. What Matt doesn’t say is that the last four months of wage rises annualised is 3.1% and falling fast: This is the weakest four-month stretch
The Australian’s Judith Sloan has written a fantastic critique of the Albanese government’s immigration policy. Sloan argues that Labor’s immigration policy represents a wind vane, lacking direction and purpose: “When it comes to the excessive number of migrants entering the country, the Albanese government’s preference is to deny the problem while quietly working in the