Martin North – Page 17 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Hello, I’m From The Government, And I’m Here To Help You! (Honest!!?)

It’s raining “announcables” at the moment, with interesting developments this past week on the housing and finance front as city, state and federal Governments continue to poke at the broken system. Schemes include, government buying off the plan to give construction firms a leg up, cheap housing for essential workers, changes to lending rules, higher council rates for investors, and further crackdowns on airB&B.

While these may sound attractive from a media positioning perspective, they will hardly move the dial on the broken housing system in Australia. It’s a case of fiddling while Rome burns.

In fact, for more on the broken system, join me on my live show next Tuesday evening at 8pm Sydney, when I will be joined by Leith Van Onselen, Chief Economist at Nucleus Wealth as we discuss “The Great Housing Poker Game”.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.

If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.

Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.

Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.

Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.

Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.

The Investor’s Dilemma: Hang In Or Jump Out?

This is our weekly market update, is the best way I have found to organize my thoughts for the week and to track what’s going on. We start in the US, crosses to Europe, then Asia, and Australia, and we also cover commodities and crypto.

In the US, the Nasdaq eked out a fifth straight record closing high on Friday following gains in Adobe and other technology-related shares, while the S&P 500 and Dow ended slightly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.15%, to 38,589.16. The S&P 500 lost 0.04%, at 5,431.6 and the Nasdaq Composite added 21.32 points, or 0.12%, at 17,688.88.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.5%, the S&P 500 rose 1.6% and the Nasdaq was up 3.2%. So the S&P 500 ended its four-day run of record closing highs, but still climbed more than 1% for the week. The S&P 500 technology sector rose 0.5%, hitting another record high close. The communication services sector rose 0.6%, leading gains among sectors.

Adobe shares jumped 14.5% a day after the company raised its annual revenue forecast on more demand for its artificial intelligence-powered software. But the Russell small-cap index fell 1.6%, adding to recent losses, while the S&P 500 industrials sector was down 1%.

The big issue this week was the Feds post decision press conference, with investors still trying to gauge how soon the Federal Reserve might be able to cut interest rates following Wednesday’s cooler-than-expected CPI report and the Fed’s revised dot plot, which lowered rate-cut expectations this year from three to one.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Let’s Play Some More Numberwang!

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to 4.0 per cent in May, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

With employment rising by around 40,000 people and the number of unemployed falling by 9,000 people, the unemployment rate fell to 4.0 per cent.

In April we saw more unemployed people than usual waiting to start work. Some of the fall in unemployment and rise in employment in May reflects these people starting or returning to their jobs.

While the total number of unemployed people fell by 9,000 in May, this followed a 33,000 increase in April. Unemployment was around 24,000 people more than in March, an average increase of around 12,000 people each month.

“There are now almost 600,000 unemployed people, however, that is still nearly 110,000 fewer people than in March 2020, just before the pandemic.

As a result of the increase in employment and the fall in unemployment, the seasonally adjusted employment-to-population ratio remained at 64.1 per cent and the participation rate remained at 66.8 per cent.

The latest net overseas migration figures showed that Australia’s NOM was 178,500 in Q3 and 129,400 in Q4, totalling 307,900 for the half. This leaves only 87,100 worth of NOM over the first half of this year to meet the federal budget’s 395,000 NOM target for 2023-24.

Given that net permanent and long-term arrivals have remained hot so far in 2024, NOM is once again going to blow way past the budget’s forecast.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

The Fed’s “High For Longer” Ripple Effect

Wednesday was it turned out, a game in two halves, with a slightly better than expected CPI read in the morning, before the Fed’s no change decision later, but impacted by a more hawkish stance in the subsequent press conference. Risk-on assets had rallied after the CPI report showed the US core consumer price index fell to the lowest in more than three years. But later, the Federal Reserve penciled in just one quarter point interest-rate cut this year, down from three seen in March.

The CPI core goods inflation was in negative territory, but the news was not all as good. Remember that to account for the ongoing questions over measuring shelter prices, Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues chose to focus on the so-called supercore of services excluding housing, a measure particularly influenced by wages. The good news is that both indexes fell last month — a bit. The bad news is that they’re still far too high for comfort and continue to make it hard to cut rates.

And The FED decided to hold rates, but played the data dependent, higher for longer card, again.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/