I caught up with Steve Mickenbecker from Canstar to pick over the rate changes this week, as CBA led the charge to lift mortgage rates 0.5%.
Importantly, there are steps household should be taking to minimise the adverse impact of the rate changes.
https://www.canstar.com.au/
Steve Mickenbecker is in Canstar’s Group Executive Team, bringing more than 30 years of experience in the Australian financial services industry. As a financial commentator for Canstar, Steve enjoys sharing his expertise across topics such as home loans, superannuation, insurance, mortgages, banking, credit cards, investment, budgeting, money management and more.
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Interesting data from Statistics New Zealand today on employment and wages today. They show that New Zealand unemployment unexpectedly rose from a record low in the second quarter but wages rose at the fastest pace in 14 years – though still well below inflation – suggesting the central bank may need to keep raising interest rates aggressively to tame inflation.
The jobless rate climbed to 3.3% from 3.2% in the first quarter, which was the lowest level since records began in 1986. Economists expected a decline to 3.1%. Employment was unchanged from the previous three months. The underutilisation rate was 9.2 percent, compared to 9.3 percent in the March 2022 quarter.
Wage inflation, measured by the labour cost index (LCI), was 3.4 percent in the year ended June 2022, the fastest since 2008 and up from 3.0 percent in the year ended March 2022, while average ordinary time hourly earnings rose 6.4 percent. While wages have lifted over the past year, annual consumer price inflation has exceeded annual wage inflation over the same period. The consumers price index (CPI) increased 7.3 percent in the year ended June 2022.
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Join us for a live discussion about the current state of economics and politics, with a focus on the busted energy markets with David Llewelln-Smith Chief Strategist at @NucleusWealth and founding publisher and editor for @Macro_business. You can ask a question live.
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Wall Street ended lower after a choppy session on Monday, with declines in Exxon Mobil and other energy companies weighing against gains in Boeing as investors digested the U.S. stock market’s biggest monthly gains in two years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.14%, or 46 points, the Nasdaq was down 0.2%, and the S&P 500 fell 0.3%.
Energy fell more than 2% to lead the broader market lower, pressured by a nearly 5% slump in oil prices after the latest data pointing to weakness in the Chinese housing market and factory activity stoked fresh recession concerns.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan on Tuesday. China warned that its military would never “sit idly by” if she visited the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
“Increased recession fears since the release of our Mid-year outlook have prompted substantial revisions to global growth,” Morgan Stanley said, highlighting the “lack of a bounce-back in China” as one of the key drivers. The bank now sees global growth at 2.4%Y, 50 basis points lower than its forecast in May.
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The value of new loan commitments for housing fell 4.4 per cent in June 2022 (seasonally adjusted) but remained at a historically elevated level of $31.0 billion, according to data released today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The ABS said: “The value of new owner-occupier loan commitments fell 3.3 per cent in June 2022, while new investor loan commitments fell 6.3 per cent. These falls followed rises in May, attributed to a clearing of application processing backlogs by lenders.
Elsewhere the total number of dwellings approved fell 0.7 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in June, following a 11.2 per cent rise in May, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).The ABS, said “the decrease in the total number of dwellings approved in June was driven by a fall in approvals for private sector dwellings excluding houses, which dropped 5.7 per cent.”
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My latest Monday evening chat with our property insider Edwin Almeida. We look at the latest from China, consider the rise in chickens at Edwin’s place, and reflect on the resignation of a Building Reform champion.
Plus the latest on the numbers, and a discussion on land banking. And you can play spot the pussy cat… somewhere through the show.
https://www.ribbonproperty.com.au/
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Like it or not, we have been caught up in the global boom in gas prices, which have been driven by bad Government policy locally, and the Ukraine Russia conflict, with the latter using gas as a lever of coercion, reducing Nord Stream flows to 20% and forcing up the price of the commodity and for European countries to grab supplied at any cost from anywhere else.
Data from the Australia Energy Regulator highlights how much prices have risen, with prices significantly higher than a few years ago, based on $ per gigajoule. last week Natural-gas prices soared in European with the benchmark gas prices rising 12% to 198 euros per megawatt-hour.
There will be a very timely DFA Live show tomorrow night with David Llewlyn-Smith, the Chief Economist at Nucleus Wealth, where we are going to explore these issues and ask what can be done. There is, he says an answer which would reduce energy prices substantially across Australia, it just takes political will.
So today we look at the state of play and some of the levers which might be pulled. The ACCC has today released forecasts showing that the east coast of Australia could face a shortfall of 56 PJ in 2023. At the same time last year, their Gas Inquiry interim report found 2022 could face a 2PJ shortfall. “Our latest gas report finds that the outlook for the east coast gas market has significantly worsened. To protect energy security on the east coast we are recommending the Resources Minister initiate the first step of the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM),” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said. “We are also strongly encouraging LNG exporters to immediately increase their supply into the market.” The root cause problem is that much of the gas produced in Australia’s east coast is produced by companies that are also LNG exporters.
Thus, we are exposed to the worst of the global markets, as LNG (the liquified form of the Gas) is sold internationally. In fact, by value it recently became one of our biggest exports – especially to China. The ACCC’s report raises concerns about the high level of market concentration, noting that LNG exporters and associates had influence over almost 90 per cent of the proven and probable (2P) reserves in the east coast in 2021 through direct interests, joint ventures and exclusivity arrangements.
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