Another light news session overnight as speculation mounts of potential trade deals and tariff pullbacks with US-China talks progressing. Wall Street took any positive news as good news and was bid strongly while European shares pulled back on some not so good unemployment data and increased concerns over defence spending. Currency markets are in a
Last week’s Q1 national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that Australia’s economy remains on life support, driven by historically high population growth and public spending. Australia’s aggregate GDP grew by only 0.2% in Q1 2025, less than half the 0.45% growth tipped by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in
On Monday, I reported how the Q1 national accounts, released last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), showed that Australia’s manufacturing sector shrank to a record low 5.1% share of GDP: As you can see, Australia’s manufacturing sector has collapsed over the past 45 years, from around 14% of GDP in the mid-1970s.
Asian share markets are having a mixed session across the region given the poor lead from Wall Street overnight with no news about trade deals between the US and China (or Japan, or anywhere else – too much going on in LA? ) Currency markets are pushing back against recent USD strength as most undollars
Victoria’s budget finances are in disarray, with the state carrying the nation’s highest debt and lowest credit rating. According to the latest state budget, Victoria’s net debt will rise to $194 billion by 2028-29, from $155.5 billion currently. Victorian net debt per capita is the highest in the nation. In 2023-24, Victoria’s per capita net
Peter Hartcher is freaking out. SMH. Trump gave himself the scope to deploy the militia and/or the military “where protests against these [federal] functions are occurring or are likely to occur”. Likely to occur? He once claimed to be a very stable genius, but now, apparently, he is also clairvoyant. In addition, says his order,
The machines are running out of volatility to bid. The Market Ear. Biggest volatility crash in history* “The 63% decline in the VIX over the last 9 weeks is the biggest volatility crash in history.” (Bilello) The spring 2020 post-COVID crash was the largest one prior to this (at 58%).*note that we are talking about a
Chinese deflation marches on. In May 2025 , the national consumer price index fell by 0.1% year-on-year . Among them, urban prices remained unchanged, and rural prices fell by 0.4 % ; food prices fell by 0.4%, and non-food prices remained unchanged; consumer goods prices fell by 0.5% , and service prices rose by 0.5% . — On average in May , the national consumer price index fell by 0.1% compared with the
The ferrous complex is nothing flash, that’s for sure. But tariffs are yet to show much in its steel exports. These are absorbing an extra 100mt of iron ore from the COVID lows. Iron ore imports are lacklustre but not collapsing. I expect more downside ahead as construction continues to shrink, but unless Beijing acts
The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which came into force in 2005, was a terrible deal for Australia that benefited the US at our expense. The Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU) investigated AUSFTA and found that, a decade after its signing, the deal had diverted more trade than