Christian Edwards

What grabbed the headlines last week? The benchmark ASX200 managed a slight win last week. It rather felt like a loss after the chiding major stocks got on Friday. Equity markets everywhere went redwards to end a tempestuous week of trade, one which began with US rate cut optimism, but ended on renewed willies about what the US and China might do to one another on the economic, tariffs and Taiwan front. The S&P drooped 0.8% on Friday. Over the last five days, the index is back…

It was me mate Leo Tolstoy who said: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way...” True. Probably. But also epic and depressing. A great starting place to share the news – backed up by quite a lot of fresh data – that we Australians remain fast in the grip of a seemingly unending nightmare rollercoaster of lurching property prices and raging rental stress. And now, according to a hat-trick of news fresh from local real estate data firms, there ar…

Aussie home prices nationally are up 5.9% over FY24 and will still have as much as a 5% rise left in them this year, according to PropTrack’s latest biannual study of national property data. It’s a sharp acceleration – Bris Vegas is up over 12% for the love of Elvis – and the pace of it has analysts on the hop. There’s more stock, there’s heaps more sales and despite the economic headwinds – like high interest rates – price growth has been on a bit of a tear so far this year, compared to w…

T’were a very good week for the ASX after April’s surprise slap in the face. Over the last five sessions, the benchmark index is up 1.6pc.

ASX to drop at the open Nvidia loses US$128bn on mkt cap on Friday Gold keeps giving, China... not so much The ASX is poised for a fall on Monday after an accelerating Wall Street got the death wobbles on Friday in New York. On Monday At 8am AEDT, the ASX200 index futures contract was pointing down by +0.6%. The ASX closed yesterday at 7,763.7, and could now test the 7769.1 high set earlier on intraday Monday. US stocks did sound a general retreat on Friday,…

They’re bombing tobacco shops in Melbourne. That’s just an example - though hardly related - to just how mad it is for renters in this pressure-cooker nation. The PropTrack Rental Report for the December 2023 quarter is out and however well-written, I can report the reading of it is rather unpleasant. To save you Victorians the time, as you drive interstate for a safe vape - in short the last three months of 2023 on the Aussie rental market were a familiar story of maddeningly low suppl…

Before this morning’s exciting Bureau of Forbidden Numbers jobs data drop, the ASX200 was keeping the trading floor in laughs with it’s widely lauded headless chook routine. Short by about 60 points or almost 0.8%, (the market equivalent of an adult chicken head) and with no distracting impetus on the run sheet, the Aussie benchmark was playing for cheap giggles and that’s it. However, by midday, the ASX200 was down just 38 points or 0.5% at 7355. ASX200 (XJO) Via Google W…

I can tell you point blank, I’m not a regular attendee of the sonorous Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment index. I say good on ’em for doing it so often. Kudos to the idea. The more data, the better. But you don’t have to be an economist (and I’m not) to know that anything which claims to be a reliable measure of an Australian’s sentiment is in trouble from the get go. I mean, have you met an Australian man and/or woman? David Beckham we are not. The last definite emot…

UPGRADES January 2 - January 12 The Lottery Corporation (ASX:TLC) Upgrade to Accumulate from Hold --- Ord Minnett We’re tacking this one on despite Ord Minnett releasing the note just before the New Year. The broker likes TLC’s consolidated, market leading position, saying it looks set to dominate local lotteries for some time. That said, sales volumes have been abnormally soft, the broker concedes. Ord expects a fairly tame first half H1 performance, estimated -7% below last year’s per…

ASX200 chalks up another solid win; Japan stocks at 34-yr highs ASX sectors all higher except Utilities Small cap winners led by the Romans, Jupiter and Maximus The ASX benchmark has closed back above 7,500 points on Thursday after Wall Street traders kept faith with the Mega-Tech revival overnight, doubling down ahead of key US inflation data. Meanwhile, after a very false start, US securities regulator the SEC has apparently really gone and approved 11 Bitcoin ETFs.…