This week’s quarterly inflation figures are the lowest since September 2021. After last week’s very low unemployment figure, we knew this week’s quarterly inflation figure would play a critical role in the next RBA decision… it had to offset the tight labour market. And it did. The June quarter CPI was 0.8 per cent and… Read more »
Yes, it’s that time of the month when the Reserve Bank decides your mortgage repayments. This time they’ve given us a breather. On Tuesday, the RBA kept official interest rates on hold at 4.1 per cent. BUT (yes, I deliberately put this in capitals) don’t think this is the end of the rate hike cycle.… Read more »
Now if you think I’ve been too hard on the Federal Government in blaming them for higher interest rates, the Reserve Bank is sort of backing me — in RBA-speak. My issue is that inflation is staying higher for longer because the Federal Government has been playing the good-cop role and encouraging big wage rises.… Read more »
I reckon the chances of Australia going into economic recession have increased significantly because of Tuesday’s rise in interest rates — caused by Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Why? I remember back in 1990 when then Federal Treasurer Paul Keating said the economic crunch was “the recession we had to have”. Current Treasurer Jim Chalmers is… Read more »
Well, that was a wild week. Nothing like a US banking crisis to get the pulse racing. Financial markets hate uncertainty and they particularly hate panic around banks. The panic caused by the collapse of Lehmann Bros back in 2008, which sparked the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), is still fresh in many people’s minds and… Read more »
I thought to kick off the year, it would be a good idea to start with a big picture look at the key economic drivers and investment markets. The fight against inflation is the focus of governments and central banks around the world. Over the Christmas break there have been a whole string of indicators… Read more »
The stage three tax cuts continue to be a talking point for next week’s first Labour Budget. But should they be? Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, brings down his first Labor Budget next Tuesday. He has certainly been preparing us with dire forecasts of a global recession and tough economic times ahead due to high inflation… Read more »
As the dust has now settled after last week’s interest rate hike by the Reserve Bank, economists have been reassessing just how many more hikes are to come in this interest rate cycle. Three of the big four banks have revised their forecasts, after the lower than expected 0.25 per cent RBA October rate hike.… Read more »
Regular readers won’t be surprised by the current property downturn as I’ve been talking about it for the 18 months… but you might be surprised by the pace of the property value drop compared with previous downturns. As you all know, I reckon history can tell us a lot about current investment cycles and property… Read more »
The manic profit reporting season of our listed sharemarket companies finished this week. Every day we were bombarded with so many results it’s hard to keep track. So now it’s over, what were the big-picture themes? Investment news site FNArena monitored the proportion of companies that had beaten or missed consensus forecasts with their earnings… Read more »
