RBA: Resilient financial system

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Financial Stability Review The Reserve Bank has given a clean bill of health for the Australian financial system, highlighting the strength of domestic banks compared with their overseas peers. The

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Dwelling starts down further weakness ahead

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Dwelling starts Australian dwelling starts fell by 5.3 per cent in the December quarter. The side in dwelling starts was due to weakness in activity in both the private and

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Monthly household fuel bill hits $200

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Weekly Petrol Price; Imports According to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, the national average Australian price of unleaded petrol rose by 0.5 cents per litre to 143.2 cents a litre

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La Niña weather event still dominates

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La Niña update Our last update on the La Niña weather event was published on February 14. At that time the Southern Oscillation index hit an 11-week low of +16.6

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Consumers start spending again

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CBA Business Spending index In line with anecdotal evidence, consumer spending strengthened in February. The Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator (BSI) rose by 0.5 per cent in trend terms in

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Construction jobs plunge; Airfares on rise

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Quarterly Labour force data; Over the three months to February, employment across Australia grew by just 0.1 per cent or 16,200 – marking the slowest pace of jobs growth in

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Investor Signposts: Week Beginning March 20 2011

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The big picture If you wanted to get a good textbook example of a ‘fear-driven’ event it is the so-called Japanese nuclear crisis. It started with one of the biggest

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Lending slides; Futures market bets on rate cut

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Lending finance; RBA Board minutes; New Car Sales Lending slumped in January. Total lending finance fell for the first time in the five months – down by 6.0 per cent

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The Great Sendai Earthquake of 2011

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Perspectives At 2.46pm on Friday March 11, an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale occurred off the north east coast of Japan near Sendai, triggering a 10 metre tsunami

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Credit cards on the outer; Petrol on the rise

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Credit card lending; Weekly Petrol Price Credit card balances are growing at the slowest annual pace in 16 months. The average credit card balance in January was up just 0.8

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