Social Trends – Page 18 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Banking On Profitability, If You’re Big Enough!

Against the backcloth of higher rates for longer, many of the Australian banks will provide trading updates over the next couple of weeks. As a group, they currently have the highest set of valuations seen for decades, but then, their earnings have held up relative to expectations. So what is ahead? And are all banks equal?

Some analysts are saying that although banks have flat to negative growth coming up for this year, from a capital management perspective, they’ve all got excess capital, so there will be more buybacks and special dividends to come. So the high valuations are just fine. But not everyone is convinced. Citi’s downgrades come a month after Macquarie told its clients to “underweight everything” in the banking sector.

But it’s worth highlighting that not all banks are created equal, because regional banks including Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and Bank of Queensland are under the pump and look to be dying a slow death because of higher cost of funds compared with the big four banks, higher capital requirements, the upward pressure on costs from upgrading technology and lack of scale.

Treasury, the RBA and APRA need to ask themselves whether they are happy to ultimately have a financial services sector dominated by the big four banks and Macquarie. This is why a public bank, providing essential banking services to communities should be part of the solution, something which we hope will be tabled in the final report from the Senate looking in Regional Branch closures. As major banks leave smaller population centres without services, we need a valid alternative. We will discuss this again on Tuesdays live show at 8pm Sydney with Robbie Barwick.

Meantime, the larger players continue to buttress their profits, at the expense of ordinary Australians, and while the market like the high valuations, Australia INC is the poorer.

http://www.martinnorth.com/

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The Crippling Highrise Disaster Continues…

The truth is that recent high rise construction in many Australian cities, are riddled with defects, and someone needs to pay for rectification. This surge in high-rise apartment construction happened as building certification was privatised, costs cut and poorly trained workers employed.

As a result, we have a litany of increased building flaws and quality concerns, such as cracked foundations, water leaks, balcony defects, and flammable cladding. According to the NSW Building Commission strata survey, more than half of newly registered buildings since 2016 had at least one significant issue that will cost an average of $331,829 to correct.

The Strata Community Association NSW found that waterproofing was the most common major issue, followed by fire safety. It also discovered that around one out of every ten buildings had structural and enclosure difficulties, such as roof or facade flaws.

Examples include Sydney’s Opal and Mascot Towers, which were evacuated due to extensive cracking.

Building regulation consultant Bronwyn Weir cautioned that an “enormous” problem had developed whereby “thousands and thousands of apartments have serious defects in their buildings”. “Some of these buildings could potentially be a write-off. We have what is now you know, a systemic failure that is quite difficult to unravel”, she said.

Engineer Leith Dawes warned that purchasing an off-the-plan apartment in Australia had degraded into a game of “Russian roulette” because of the numerous building faults that are frequently overlooked.

Similar structural problems have been uncovered across Melbourne, including leaking buildings, mould, and faulty balconies, Canberra, Gold Coast and many other areas too.

These problems have cost owners and taxpayers millions of dollars to rectify. But the problems are widespread, and many individual property owners are caught in the crossfire.

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.

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More Inflation Shenanigans: Will The Next Rate Move Be Up, Not Down?

Rate cuts anytime this year in Australia, are now hanging by a thread, given the latest inflation data came in hotter than expected, despite the annual rate falling thanks to base effects from months ago, and some changes in the weightings.

The upside surprise came via a smaller than expected fall in utilities, but stronger than expected increases in health, car prices and insurance. Sticky inflation has become a reality, leaving the RBA board’s decision last month to abandon its stated tightening bias looking premature. Most concerning for the RBA will be the surprising strength in trimmed mean inflation, its preferred measure of underlying price pressures, which rose 4%, also higher than forecast and well above the RBA’s 2-3% target.

The ABS reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.0 per cent in the March quarter, higher than the 0.6 per cent rise in the December 2023 quarter. Annually, the CPI rose 3.6 per cent to the March 2024 quarter. While prices continued to rise for most goods and services, annual CPI inflation was down from 4.1 per cent last quarter and has fallen from the peak of 7.8 per cent in December 2022.

RBA governor Michele Bullock did warn there will be bumps on the journey back to target, and while one quarterly increase in underlying inflation does not mean disinflation is over it is an early warning sign that Australia could be going the way of the United States, where inflation is proving hard to tame. At very least this higher-than-expected result in the first three months of 2024, suggesting price pressures are proving stickier and bolstering the case for the central bank to hold interest rates at a 12-year high.

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.

DFA Live Q&A HD Replay: After The Halving: With Adam Stokes

This is an edited version of a live discussion, Adam Stokes, a crypto advocate in which we discussed the recent halving, and what may happen next.

Last weekend marked the highly anticipated Bitcoin halving event, which reduces the supply of new coins. While the short-term impact may be muted, long-term investors remain optimistic due to its historical correlation with price surges. But Bitcoin remains trapped within the consolidation phase that began in March. If a fresh wave of selling erupts due to global events, the critical support at $60,000 will be in focus.

Since last summer, Bitcoin has been heavily influenced by ETF inflows. Investors have placed more than $US12 billion into cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds listed in the United States in the last month alone. Initially, spot Bitcoin ETF anticipation drove the price. Later, the launch of such ETFs accelerated institutional buying, propelling Bitcoin to pre-halving highs. With institutions now holding a significant amount of Bitcoin, any slowdown in ETF sales could delay the halving’s positive impact.

The halving last weekend marked the fourth event of its kind since the first bitcoin was produced on January 3, 2009. Following the halving, the number of bitcoin being “minted” globally each day will drop from around 900 to 450. The price of bitcoin has generally risen after each previous halving event.

Despite tracking sideways for much of the last month, the price of the cryptocurrency is still up more than 50 per cent since the start of the year. That compares to a 5.6 per cent return from the S&P 500 index and -0.1 per cent return from the ASX 200 since January 1.

https://www.youtube.com/@adamstokes

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