It's consistent with an economy that's starting to pull back up in Korea, with a bit of consumer demand starting to come through again. I would expect the unemployment rate will start to decline and will fall further. |
Long-term economic growth is not sustainable if it's coming mostly from remittances. To maintain a strong living standard, the Philippines needs to encourage investment and that will build productive capacity and sustain consumption over the long-term. |
Our assessment is that Australian shares will continue to outperform mainstream global shares over the next year, thanks to a combination of higher dividend yields, slightly stronger earnings growth (helped of course by the resources sector) and franking credits. |
Our assessment is that house prices may have a bounce but this is unlikely to mark the start of a sustained recovery. |
Our assessment remains that Australian shares will continue to outperform mainstream global shares thanks to a combination of higher dividend yields and slightly stronger earnings growth. |
Our market will be largely hostage to what's going on globally this week. |
Recent economic data has been on the soft side. There is nothing in the recent run of generally soft numbers that would support another rise in rates by the Reserve Bank. |
Returns aren't going to be as tragic as some are portraying because the mining stocks are still looking fine. The resources stocks rely more on global growth so, to a degree, they're insulated from many of the woes afflicting our own economy. |
Rising fuel prices will keep a lid on consumer spending for some time, slowing economic growth. The central bank will keep interest rates on hold. |
Slowing housing, weak consumer spending and benign underlying inflation give the bank plenty of reasons to leave interest rates right where they are. Fuel prices are up, but thanks to an extremely competitive retail environment and cheap imports, prices for a whole range of items remain weak. |
So on this basis, and thanks to very strong earnings growth, the Australian share market is still cheap. |
Some have argued the fall in the Australian dollar at a time when commodity prices are still strong is telling us global growth is about to collapse. However, there are few indicators of any impending collapse in global growth or commodity prices. In fact, global growth seems to be strengthening thanks to stronger growth in Europe and Japan. |
The bank is concerned about inflationary pressure in the economy given the strength in the global economy and higher commodity prices. It will be a knock on the head for both retail and housing. |
The China growth story, which has been driving commodity prices, remains as strong as ever, |
The Chinese economy continues to motor along at a pretty solid pace. There has been a bit of a rebalancing of the economy over the past few years away from fixed-asset investment toward the consumer. |