Housing affordability: Another headwind of the U.S. economy

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U.S. housing affordability worsened considerably in 2022, driven by expensive home prices and soaring mortgage rates. With the Federal Reserve remaining focused on inflation, a quick recovery from here is... Read more continue reading

Weekly economic and market update – week ending 20 January, 2023

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Investment markets and key developments After rising solidly in the first two weeks of the year, US and European share markets pulled back over the last week on the back... Read more continue reading

CommSec state of the states – January 2023

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Overall results How are Australia’s states and territories performing? Each quarter CommSec attempts to find out which state or territory is Australia’s economic leader. Now in its 14th year, the... Read more continue reading

A volatile run of employment numbers continued in December

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Labour force – December 2022 A volatile run of employment numbers continued in December There was a lot of noise in the December labour force numbers released today. In seasonally... Read more continue reading

2023 – a list of lists regarding the macro investment outlook

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Key points 2022 was dominated by high inflation, rising interest rates, war in Ukraine & recession fears. This hit bonds & shares hard, driving losses for balanced growth super funds.... Read more continue reading

Wages growth to challenge the “Australian exceptionalism” narrative and FOMC meets next week

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Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raises 25 basis points as expected. Wages growth to challenge the “Australian exceptionalism” narrative. Upside risk to market pricing of the RBA policy rate. As... Read more continue reading

Property listings increase: Distressed sales activity falls over November

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Key points National residential property listings rose in November by 2.4% to 241,701 from 236,056 in October. Nationally, new listings (Less than 30 days) rose 2.5% over November, with 76,553... Read more continue reading

Weekly economic and market update – week ending 1 December, 2022

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Investment markets and key developments Global share markets mostly rose again over the last week rising to new recovery highs on the back of more signs that inflationary pressures may... Read more continue reading

The home price slump continued in November, with still more to go

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Key Points Australian national average home prices fell another 1% in November and are now down by 6.9% from their high, having seen their steepest fall in the last forty... Read more continue reading

Five medium term inflation pressures and implications for investors

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Key points The surge in inflation should start to reverse next year. However, five structural trends suggest higher medium term inflation pressures than pre-pandemic. These are: a move away from... Read more continue reading