Following the Optus outage this week, the Senate has launched an Inquiry into the issue and impact. One element to the fore was the lack of access to cash thanks to recent bank branch and ATM closures and some businesses choosing to go digital only. Useless when the network or power goes out.
So we need to make sure the Government hears from us about the essential utility of cash, and that they need to legislate to protect access and acceptance of it.
So make a submission to the current inquiry, deadline for which is 17th November.
Use your voice to make sure our elected officials get the message. Access to cash is a requirement, and it needs to be protected – as a safeguard to democracy!
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Optus’ network failures have again highlighted the risks to the community when technology breaks. There were structural reasons why the failures happened, but the fallout was significant.
This brings the need to ensure access to cash is enshrined in law in Australia into sharp contrast again. This has already happened in a number of other countries.
The Change.org petition https://www.change.org/p/an-australian-cash-and-banking-guarantee has more than 130,000 signatures, and I encourage my followers to sign up.
We cannot be held hostage to a digital future which is intrinsically unreliable.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
As we move into November, global stock indexes swung sharply as the U.S. dollar dropped to a six-week low and benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields fell to five-week lows on Friday.
The catalyst was data showed U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in October with some seeing this as meaning the Federal Reserve may be done hiking interest rates. We will see.
The Fed, Bank of England, Canada and other Central Banks have all held rates, in recent times, while continuing to underscore the drive towards their inflation targets will mean rates stay higher for longer.
U.S. two-year yields were the lowest since early September after U.S. job growth slowed in part as strikes by the United Auto Workers union against Detroit’s “Big Three” carmakers depressed manufacturing payrolls. The data also showed the increase in annual wages was the smallest in nearly 2-1/2 years, pointing to an easing in labor market conditions.
The U.S. dollar index dropped to a six-week low after the jobs data. In afternoon trading, the dollar index fell 1%, with the euro up 1.04% to $1.0730. “The good news here is that the slowdown will likely keep the Fed on the sidelines going forward,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Massachusetts. “One of their key concerns has been an overheated economy, especially after last quarter’s GDP growth, and this suggests that problem is going away.”
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I caught up with Queensland Senator Rennick, and discussed a range of important issues including the accountability and independence of the RBA, regional banking and the digital divide, the digital content bill, and finally, and importantly the role and effectiveness of democracy.
Gerard Rennick is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for Queensland since July 2019. He is a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland and sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament.
On 8 July 2023 at the LNP Annual Convention in Brisbane, Rennick lost preselection for the third position on the LNP’s senate ticket for the next federal election, after being narrowly defeated by Stuart Fraser, the party’s treasurer
This is an edited edition of our latest live discussion with Tony Locantro from Alto Capital. Tony is an Investment Manager at Alto Capital in Perth Australia. He has been an active adviser specialising in ASX small cap companies in the mining, biotech and emerging industrial sectors. He was formerly in the NSW Police Force up until November 1998.
Tony has the knack of tell things as they are, warts and all.
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In my post yesterday, I highlighted the 4200 support level for the S&P 500 and the risks if that was breached. Well, today as the tech sector melted down it dragged the S&P 500 index under the 4,200 support level.
Rising Treasury yields and political gridlock in D.C. dominate financial headlines, but it was GOOGL’s poor results that became one straw too many, and the index shed another 1.4%.
And significantly, soaring U.S. Treasury yields are further boosting the appeal of bonds over stocks, deepening an already painful equity selloff while threatening to weigh on equity performance over the long term.
If earnings growth is squeezed as expected there are many stocks which are currently significantly overvalued – so perhaps the real message here is that individual stock-picking is back baby, rather than playing the index. Plus, there is always the risk of course Central Banks panic and cut rates hard into a recession, something which they have form on doing.
So, in fractious markets sometimes watching from the sidelines is the best move, until things shake out. Remember October is often the worst month for stocks across the year!
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With bond yields surging back to levels not seen since 2016 in recent months, there has been no shortage of comparisons between the current state of markets and that on the eve of the global financial crisis. In fact, the parallels drawn between conditions now and in 2007 appear pretty strong when you take a look.
Simultaneous falls in bonds and equities could hit parity trades. The sort of asset mismatches we saw in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank could return. With mortgage rates in the US at 8 per cent, both sides (sell and buy) of the real estate market could completely freeze.
Pockets of the economy that have less transparency could be in trouble, such as private equity and particularly private credit provided by hedge funds, which has become increasingly important given the banks have backed away from commercial lending.
As in the GFC, “trust between banks could suddenly evaporate”, while a move up in the US dollar could sap global liquidity at the wrong time.
Perhaps ASX investors should think about the bigger picture. Despite all that’s happened in the past 15 years – the GFC and recovery, the pandemic and recovery – they don’t have a lot to show for it.
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This is an edited version of a live discussion with Research Director from The Australian Citizens Party, Robbie Barwick as we look at the contemporary issues surrounding the battle to keep cash in the economy, branch closures, the current financial settings, and the broader political and economic background.
The imperative for change has rarely been stronger, and we literally stand on the brink….
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As I have warned, October can be a fickle month on the markets, and is proving to be so again. Growing volatility in U.S. stocks is driving a search for defensive assets, though investors may have fewer places to hide this time around.
On Friday, global stock markets, including those in the US and Europe, experienced declines due to rising US treasury yields which reached a 16-year high and the potential escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.36% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 1.10%. Emerging market stocks lost 0.53%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.6% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.54%. So, losses everywhere.
On Friday, US President Biden said he plans to ask Congress for another $US74 billion ($117.2 billion) to fund the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Fed Speak is not helping either, while other Fed officials have hinted that the tightening cycle could be at an end, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments on Thursday underscored possible further interest rate hikes, driven by the robust US economy, strong retails sales and tight labor market.
In a Bloomberg TV interview, Mohamed El-Erian took Federal Reserve policymakers to task, saying the US economy is seeing a period of “greater uncertainty” because of a lack of vision from Fed officials.
“You cannot drive a car without some understanding of what the road ahead looks like. You can’t just look at the rear-view mirror and try to adjust to every curve you just had,” El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz, said. “That is not how you drive policy and it’s certainly not how you drive policy when the impact of policy happens with a lag,” he said. “This is the first Fed I know that has not gotten it.”
In a note, a Bank of America’s team led by Michael Gapen said the Fed could done lifting rates. “Fed commentary has all but confirmed that the Fed will stay on hold in November. We shift the last rate hike in our forecast out to December. We think the strong September data keep another hike in play. But it is a close call. There are meaningful risks that the Fed will either delay the last hike into 2024 or not hike again.”
“Investor sentiment is quite negative, and we believe it’s important to zoom out and focus on the long term – even the intermediate term – and a lot of this will fall by the wayside,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.
“There’s not enough attention being paid to company earnings, which have been coming in strong, and guidance has been solid,” Mayfield added. “Investors would be wise to pay attention to that as much as the macro events, the geopolitical tensions.”
On Thursday the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, the bedrock of the global financial system, was briefly bid above the 5% barrier for the first time since July 2007, touching 5.001%. While the benchmark yield eased back from that level, it posted its largest weekly surge since April 2022. The 30-year bond last rose in price to yield 5.078%, from 5.102% late on Thursday. With the 2 year in similar territory, such a flat yield curve is a sign of uncertainty, with some questioning whether the bond market has become unanchored, or whether the big US bond issuance has moved markets, or whether it simply reflects a risk premium. The MOVE index, which measures expected volatility in U.S. Treasuries, stands near a four-month high.
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