On Thursday, Statistics New Zealand released data on Building Work Put in Place, which showed that residential construction plunged by 4.9% in Q4 2024, to be 25% down from its previous peak in Q3 2022. The following chart from Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro also shows that the level of building was revised down in
From July 1, 2024, Victorian non-profit private schools with an income per student of more than $15,000 were liable to a 4.86% payroll tax. These schools would pay the Victorian government an estimated $101.8 million in 2025. An investigation by The Age revealed that the payroll tax charge resulted in an average annual tuition increase
An excellent summary of the factors at work in the equity market from Zero Hedge. “Headline fatigue is hammering markets,” according to one well-positioned trader who noted that US equities traded definitively lower today despite Trump delaying tariffs on Mexico and Canada today (an incremental positive for sure)… This is the market’s worst three-week spell since
Wednesday’s Q4 national accounts showed that Australia’s economy finally emerged from its prolonged per capita recession, recording the first increase (+0.1%) in GDP per capita in 21 months. In its media release following the result, the Australian Industry Group (AIG) cautioned that the “improvement in GDP masks continuing private sector weakness”. “Today’s national accounts data
As it should. Bloomberg. While bleak quarterly results from Australian peers last month helped trim its valuation, Commonwealth Bank remains one of the most expensive bank shares globally. The stock trades at 25 times forward earnings, almost double JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s multiple. “The banks’ latest results were not good enough to meet lofty expectations
Last week, I critiqued an interview with former immigration department bureaucrat turned influencer, Abul Rizvi, on Joseph Walker’s podcast. In the interview, Rizvi explicitly admitted that slowing population ageing comprised about “80%” of the motivation for massively increasing Australia’s intake of migrants in the early 2000s. Until spending about a week reading up on Aus
The continuing decline in Australia’s productivity was one of the most important data points from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Q4 national accounts released this week. Labour productivity (GDP per hour worked) fell by 0.1%, which follows declines of 0.7% and 0.5% in the previous two quarters, respectively. This lowered Australia’s labour productivity to
Thursday’s dwelling approvals data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggested that the nation’s housing shortage continues to worsen. In January, only 15,142 homes were approved for construction, nearly 25% below the Albanese government’s housing target, requiring 20,000 homes to be built monthly for five consecutive years. In the 12 months to January, 174,942
DXY is still getting pummeled. EUR is taking the lift up. All things considered, AUD is still weak. Can’t catch EUR, catch dislocate DXY. Lead boots! Break, baby, break! Metals relation sluggish outside copper. Miners a bit of life. EM still meh. Junk turning a little threatening. Yields sticky. Stocks were hammered again. The EUR
Aside from oil, Australia has almost every natural resource the world requires. Australia has significant reserves of coal, gas, uranium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and lithium. Over the past two decades, Australia has reaped the greatest benefit from global commodity prices. The following chart from independent economist Tarric Brooker shows the extraordinary growth in Australian resources