First, a big thanks for the incredible interest in, and downloads of, our Complexity Premia podcast! We have just published the third episode where we: discuss analysis showing that the government’s fiscal budget is already in surplus and what this means for the looming election; reflect on the heated and... Show More
Today I show how ScoMo has already delivered a $7bn plus budget surplus on a number of the key measures years in advance of what rating agencies and analysts (save yours truly) expected, which is the best budget outcome since 2008. I then present the evidence I used to demolish... Show More
Billed as the "property punch-up of the century" by News.com.au, and as "Fight Night" by Sky Business TV, I went head-to-head for 30 heated minutes with mega perma-bear John Adams last night on Peter Switzer's television show. I thought I smashed Adams pretty convincingly, and Switzer appeared to agree in... Show More
Let's take a step back from the monthly housing data and ask ourselves: What's happening in the market and are we seeing a bottom in prices - or are there further falls to come? Show More
In my column today I write "if only the RBA had its brilliant new research on the impact of interest rates on house prices back in 2013 when I warned them that their easy money policy would blow a huge housing bubble, as it subsequently did" (click on that link... Show More
Coolabah developed the world's first compositionally-adjusted, or hedonic, regression-based index of RMBS default rates, covering all prime deals that Bloomberg reports on (you can download the paper here). We update this index monthly, and the results are enclosed below. Show More
After promising to enact the Royal Commission's recommendations to the letter before the report was even released, and then saying it accepted all the recommendations "in principle" after the report was published (whatever that means), Labor have now rejected outright one of the Royal Commission's most important findings: that mortgage... Show More
The Australian economy performed well during 2018 with rising GDP, lower unemployment and stable inflation. Despite this, the outlook for 2019 is not as positive, as a number of factors are beginning to point to downside in the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) achieving their policy mandate including low inflation,... Show More
In my column today I write that the biggest winners from the royal commission are demonstrably the big banks while the largest losers are Australia’s mortgage brokers. Indeed, the top end of town have done an amazing job (as we predicted) convincing everyone that brokers should be made the “fall... Show More
In my column today I reveal that Australia is now officially experiencing the biggest house price falls on record in almost 40 years: home values across the five largest capital cities have officially fallen 8.3 per cent from their late 2017 peak according to the top index provider, CoreLogic, which... Show More
The whole Livewire team is laser-focused on constantly improving your user experience, with relevant, readable content at the heart of that experience. To ensure the content keeps hitting the mark, we monitor a suite of data points. One we put a lot of weight on is the humble ‘like’ button... Show More
In my column today I argue that to have any hope of divining the prospects for 2019, one has to first solve the Rubik’s Cube that was 2018 in which the most overvalued asset-class on the planet, government bonds, reigned as king—trumping cash—despite this column’s contrarian forecast of four Fed... Show More
In my first column for the year, I reflect on the debate I kicked off regarding the absence of any publicly managed super solution and the role the Future Fund could play in this context. After dealing with criticisms from vested interests, I query whether Chris Bowen has unwittingly wedged... Show More
The last four months of 2018 were brutal for investors everywhere. October was particularly painful, with most managers off by -5 to -10%. So it caught my eye when I saw one posting +7% for October. This same fund has finished CY18 up 42.9%. Show More
The critical financial issue in the Australian economy at present is clearly the possible economic effect of the decline in home prices. We have been warning about high home prices and household debt since 2015, but have always known that the timing of any downturn would be difficult, if not... Show More
In my column today I write that RBA governor Phil Lowe needs to pull his head in. It's fine for him to tell the banks to loosen their lending standards, but he isn't the one being sued by ASIC on the basis of an entirely fallacious interpretation of Labor's 2009... Show More
Today I write (very short excerpt only): "Amidst the daily market chaos we can state a few things with certainty. First, the volatility of volatility (or the volatility of the VIX index in the US) is at a record high as investors struggle to figure out where fair value for... Show More
One of our best “short” (as opposed to “long”) ideas this year has been to bet that the credit spreads on residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) would widen—reducing their price—as a function of the toxic combination of falling house prices, rising defaults, surging supply and plummeting home loan prepayment rates. (We... Show More
I always think of periods of market volatility as manageable brush fires - while still causing market nervousness they’re actually better for the long-term market structure as they lower the risk of a serious bush fire. For the Australian market the latest ‘brush fires’ were the result of market nervousness... Show More
Today I review research that shows if Labor eliminates negative gearing and increases capital gains tax by 50%, national house prices could fall 9-12% on top of the current declines; parse new analysis from CoreLogic highlighting a spike in the share of apartment owners realising losses when they sell their... Show More
