There are some days when an economist can only shake his head in appalled wonder. After the shock jump in monthly inflation on Wednesday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government was still weighing up whether to extend the federal subsidy that is due to expire next month. …National Australia Bank chief economist Sally Auld said
On Thursday morning, a press release from APRA with the headline: ‘APRA to limit high debt-to-income home loans to constrain riskier lending’ At first glance, it sounds perfectly reasonable, but once one begins to read into the details, it swiftly becomes clear that it is yet another one of APRA’s wet lettuce leaf approaches to
With Wall Street closed for Thanksgiving there wasn’t much of a boost for risk markets across the trading complex, with most stock indices finishing where they started and currencies holding on to their recent gains against the USD. The likely rate cut by the Fed in its December meeting is still in play with USD
DXY was soft overnight with US markets closed for Turkey Day. AUD firmed. CNY stable. The Japanese bust is contained by the Fed. Commodoties were weak without the Wall St inflation pump. EM stocks OK. Junk OK. Yields OK. Stocks closed. Societe Generale has the rub. The RBNZ inspired a big FX move overnight by
This week saw the release of two important housing affordability reports from Cotality and Proptrack. Turning to Cotality’s report first, it showed that the median home price relative to median household income nationally hit a record high of 8.2 in Q3 2025, up from 6.4 five years earlier in Q3 2020. The amount of income
Asian equity markets are generally up with the lack of a lead tonight as Wall Street will be closed for thanksgiving (thanking the AI bubble that is stuffing the stock market turkey that it is). Movement has been more regional as Chinese markets react to the latest and slow industrial production numbers while locally capex
Undoubtedly, the deterioration in quality has been obvious for years in eastern metropolitan dailies and continues. However, it is important to note that the drivers of the decline have changed marginally. A few months ago, the parent company of the papers sold Domain to the American Costar Group. This raises the question of why Nine
Just how corrupt is Albo? Everybody wants him to crush the gas cartel: 80% of Australians, all of industry and most miners, even the gas cartel itself. Now, farmers. Santos’s blighted Narrabri gas project is facing a new hurdle, with the country’s largest state farming body threatening legal action in a bid to force the state and
By Stephen Saunders The Coalition’s touted policy shifts enable Albanese to sail on with massive immigration, historic rental/housing unaffordability, and steepening power bills. Nominally the Liberal Party mantra is “individual freedom and free enterprise”. With immigration, housing, energy, employment, “United Nations” Labor is interventionist, dirigiste, statist. Donning that Joy Division T-shirt, former student-activist Albanese leads
TechnologyOne boss Ed Chung has rejected claims that restrictive council planning red tape is the source of Australia’s structural housing shortage and crisis. TechnologyOne supplies software to a vast majority of Australian local governments, and Chung argues that councils are being “unfairly targeted” as the primary roadblock to housing supply. “I think local government is