Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
This is an edited version of a live discussion about the current state of the property markets. We look at recent price falls, as well as the latest from our modelling, including information at a post code level. And of course review today’s RBA decision. Warning, this show might run for longer than normal! Thanks to Cookie for his work on price falls!!
Original stream is here: https://youtu.be/R2Oy5Mk4RLA
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Join us tonight at 8pm Sydney for a live discussion about property trends, and household stress. You can ask a question live, and we will have the post code engine online so we can look at specific post codes and also our stress mapping across the country.
Given the 50 basis point rate hike today, this is an important show.
The recent release of 2021 Census data revealed a shocking “one million homes were unoccupied”.
This statistic sent housing commentators, government agencies and policymakers into a spin. At a time of significant housing shortages, this extra million homes would surely make a big difference. They could provide housing for some homeless, ease the rental affordability crisis, and get first-home owners into their first home. There has been a great deal of speculation about how this has happened. Has it been caused by overseas millionaires buying up housing and leaving it as an empty investment? Is it Airbnb taking up homes that could be used for families? Or are cashed-up Gen-Xers double-consuming by living in one house while renovating another?
So, why were 1,043,776 dwellings empty on census night?
As I discussed in a recent post Australia is starting to look at a Central Bank Digital Currency programme, with a focus on retail customers. The design parameters and business case are yet to emerge, and I hope there will be considerable consultation around privacy, free choice and the continued used of cash.
Around the work, work on CBDC’s are progressing. China’s e-CNY, or digital yuan, project is essentially ready to go, with the country going slow to ensure mass adoption is effectively in place before the launch, on which it has placed a lot of prestige.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has been an enthusiastic supporter of a digital euro, calling it “the holy grail” of cross-border payments. “To ensure financial stability in this digital age, it is crucial that we all still have easy access to central bank money, which is the foundation of our currency,” ECB President Christine Lagarde, said in July. “The digital euro can achieve that.” The ECB’s crypto front man Fabio Panetta said in May that a digital euro could launch within four years.
India and Russia are planning CBDC launches sooner than that, with India saying a CBDC could launch as soon as 2023. Almost all the G20 members are working on a CBDC to some degree. Sweden, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil are all fairly advanced, while Africa’s largest country, Nigeria, launched its eNaira CBDC almost a year ago. Both South Africa and Ghana have live pilots up and running.
And more than a few governments have been clear that challenging the dollar’s hegemony is a goal, with the ECB’s Lagarde saying a “digital euro would also help to avoid market dominance.” So you could argue that Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have reached a critical mass, and enough major economies are challenging the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency (and all the power that comes with it) to shift the debate to matters of national prestige. Which then takes us to the US, where things are also getting started.
To that end, I want to discuss remarks made by Fed Governor Michelle Bowman where she suggested that she believes the FedNow real-time payments system will make a digital dollar unnecessary. But, perhaps the arguments that the U.S. will need a CBDC to defend the dollar’s place as the world’s reserve currency are winning, for reasons that have nothing to do with an actual need for a digital dollar or real-time payments. The financial superpower can’t afford to be left behind.
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Our latest Friday afternoon chat, picking over the latest charts, which are telling a confusing story, as Central Banks continue to hike into a head wind. How will this play out?
You can get Tarric’s charts here: https://avidcom.substack.com/p/charts-that-matter-2nd-september and follow him on Twitter @Avidcommentator
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
The markets are now sliding into September – always a weak month, and seasoned investors like Jeremy Grantham are calling it, more slides ahead. When you look at what the FED has said, it is highly likely – that is until (if) they change track (again).
Until then, there is simply nowhere to hide. Note, they have provided no explanation of why they got past calls so wrong, so why should we believe them this time?
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.
Join us for a live discussion about the current state of the markets with Damien Klassen, Head of Investments At Walk The World Fund and Nucleus Wealth. You can ask a question live.
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
How will global investors react to the overriding message from the Central Bankers Lovin-in at Jackson Hole? Aussie markets were 2% down on Monday morning.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s stern message was that interest rates are going higher for longer in a painful fight against inflation. Be clear, he quashed thoughts that the trajectory of monetary tightening could soon be tempered.
Investors now see the Fed’s policy rate peaking in March at around 3.80% and pared bets on a decline in 2023. The US yield curve between the five and 30-year maturities inverted for the second time this month, while the gap between the higher two-year yield and the 10-year rate widened.
The inversions suggest the bond market anticipates a recession is the necessary sacrifice to get price pressures back under control. Though I note already, some bank economists are saying, this is all talk, because the bond market hardly reacted.
Expect to hear more on the trade-off between higher rates of inflation and higher unemployment, and whether the 2-3% targeting which has become a cornerstone of Central Bank doctrine is relevant. Meantime, other than commodities, and the USD, there is nowhere to hide – and Bitcoin came down in sympathy.
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Remember when the mantra from Central bankers was inflation was temporary? This was still being recited late last year, despite the rapidly expanding money supply created by the reaction to COVID (which had already been expanded by the reaction to the GFC in 2007 and beyond.
Ultra-low interest rates were coupled with excessive Government fiscal support from direct payments to businesses and households, and indirect support to businesses. This combined stoked home prices, and credit growth, in an attempt to maximise employment and sheeted inflation mainly to supply chain disruptions which would sort themselves out. RBA Governor Lowe late last year said no rate rise until 2024, and only recently changed his tune.
But fast forward just 6 months, and the tone has been changed completely, with a bevy of the world’s top central bankers delivering a stern and unified message on the need to curb inflation, declaring at Jackson Hole that it is broad based, here to stay and will require their forceful action. Like lemmings, they are now all running to the “must kill off rampant inflation at all costs” exit instead.
Begs the question, were they wrong then, or are they wrong now? And whilst they plan to lift rates significantly higher, will it actually tame inflation or not? And what collateral damage will these rate increases cause? I for one have little confidence in the whole Central Planners and Bankers edifice. They are of course unaccountable, and unelected.
We answer viewers questions about Deposit Bail-In. A timely discussion given the state of the financial system.
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/