A heroes parade is on for those who predicted the gas crisis. Rod Sims leads us off. Former head of the competition regulator Rod Sims says he has been warning the Victorian Labor government about gas shortages for a decade but was ignored, after wild storms left more than 45,000 homes and businesses in the
Risk markets took their deep breath yesterday morning in reaction to the Trumpian Trade War but overshot as usual, with some mild recoveries overnight including Wall Street. Currency markets flocked to the USD but have recovered at least half of their respective movements with the Mexican turnaround or stay helping ease the volatility, although the
The Q4 2024 inflation data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggested that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will likely begin cutting the official cash rate at its 18 February meeting. December’s retail sales data from the ABS challenges this view, however. While nominal retail sales in Australia fell by 0.1% in December.
DXY was back but then not. AUD put in an impressive hammer candle bottom. I’m baffled by the reaction of auld lead boots. Oil down, gold up. Commods mixed. Miners meh. EM lol. Junk whacked. Yields hardly moved. An extinction-level asteroid could hurt stocks. Pretty wild pump and dumps on this. Lol, Mexican troops to
“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome”. This famous quote was coined by legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger in a 1995 Harvard speech. Munger’s quote encapsulates a fundamental truth about human behaviour and its impact on business and government. It also applies to Australia’s gargantuan National Disability Insurance
Mind the gap! The new trade war over the weekend, which is set to escalate further as the world pushes back at the Bully-in-Chief sent, well everything risk associated lower with Asian stock markets the first casualties. Currency markets all experienced wide 100-200 pip gaps on the open this morning as the USD soared against
Deutsche with the note. First, we consider the announcements to be at the most hawkish end of the protectionist spectrum we could have envisaged. The speed of implementation (Tuesday 12:01am EST), the scope (all goods are covered, including small parcel goods previously exempted) and the breadth (approximately 44% of total US imports) are all aggressive. It
The Market Ear with the latest update on equity internals. That was quick SPX approaching range highs soon. Monday’s intraday lows actually touched the 100 day… Refinitiv Vulnerable shorts 1. Post-Monday’s AI selloff, long positions have become cleaner as “risky” longs were sold. 2. Monday saw the highest net selling since September 2024, driven by
CoreLogic data shows that national rental affordability hit an all-time low at the end of 2024, with 33% of median household income spent on the national median rent. According to CoreLogic, this followed a 37% increase in asking rents over the past five years, whereas PropTrack reported a 47% increase in rents over the same
This is not a debate. It is propaganda from both sides. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has claimed his nuclear energy policy would cut power bills by 44 per cent, but analysis by the renewables sector warns it could actually drive up electricity costs by more than $1000 a year for millions of Australians with rooftop