One quick note about this: there is obviously plenty of inflation in the prices you pay every day. But most consumer price indices are rigged to understate inflation, as our colleague David Evans pointed out yesterday in Canberra at the Gold Standard Institute conference in Canberra. Trimmed medians…hedonic adjustments…
November 2nd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "anz"
Rally in Stocks and Rise in Aussie Dollar is a Result of the Carry Trade
That’s just what happened last year. Only then, it was both a dollar and yen carry trade that led to a rise in Aussie assets. Once the credit crisis set in, the yen carry got dropped and investors fled risk assets and piled right back into the greenback and U.S. Treasuries.
October 29th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 9 comments | Continued
A Credit Depression
You don’t need to own subprime loans to take loan losses in a credit depression. Smith said the area that concerned him most was the surge in small and mid-size businesses simply closing up shop unexpectedly. “In the real economy,” he said, “there is no evidence that the world economy is yet bottoming.”
April 30th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued
Property Market at “Inflection Point”
Investors refrain from taking long-term positions because there are so many known unknowns and even more unknown unknowns (although we conceded it is hard to put a number on the number of unknown unknowns, given their unknown nature, if you know what we’re saying).
April 8th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
The Trouble With Banks
Meanwhile, there is not much we can tell you that you don’t already know about the global rout in stocks. Wall Street is at twelve- year lows. The FTSE is at six-year lows. And here in Australia the market has opened lower than its five-year low, as you’d expect after such a wretched overnight performance on global markets.
March 3rd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 6 comments | Continued
The Permanent Portfolio
Today’s Daily Reckoning begins with an outsider’s look at the Australian banking sector. Then we’ll take a Prime Ministerial look. And finally, a Gallic technical trader’s look. All three perspectives suggest that Australia’s banking sector is a lot less insulated from the global crisis than its advocates have suggested. But don’t take our word for it…
January 21st, 2009 | Dan Denning | 17 comments | Continued
$40 Barrel of Oil for Christmas
Stuck for Christmas gift ideas? Why not try a barrel of oil? You can get one for around US$40 these days. That’s 54% lower than this time last year and 72% below the price on July 14th ($145.16). True, a big barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil might be hard to fit under a Christmas tree. And it’s probably a fire hazard. But it also makes an excellent end table or lectern…
December 8th, 2008 | Dan Denning | 7 comments | Continued
Australian Banks Must Increase Fees or Expand Loans to Remain Profitable
The news that’s all the rage today is Westpac’s (ASX: WBC) $19 billion bid for St. George (ASX: SGB). But in an age of rising interest rates and credit contraction, how will Australian banks remain profitable… Fees. If profitability on loans is declining (and it is), the banks could make it up charging you more fees. The growth rate in bank fees has actually declined, if you peruse the data from the Reserve Bank.
May 13th, 2008 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
Fantasy Land in the Aussie Financial Sector
It’s bizzaro world in the Aussie market today. Financial shares got a boost from a merger bid. The Prime Minister moves down the track toward price controls to bring local petrol down during a global oil crunch. And the RBA says only “risky borrowers” are facing tighter credit conditions these days.
April 16th, 2008 | Dan Denning | 8 comments | Continued
Opes Causing Strife in the Share Market
Opes Prime, the Melbourne-based broker currently causing so much strife in the share market. The company was in the “equity financing and securities lending” business. On the retail end, Opes was basically a margin lender to clients, only instead of posting cash as collateral against the loan, the client puts up his entire portfolio as collateral.
March 31st, 2008 | Dan Denning | 3 comments | Continued