by Stephen Roberts | Jan 12, 2015 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
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It is easy to become pessimistic about Australia’s economic prospects amid tumbling commodity prices, falling national income and deep cuts in planned spending on major resource projects. Over the next year or two at least it would seem that non-mining spending will grow insufficiently to outweigh falling mining investment spending. Lack-luster growth in national spending in turn causes an upward drift in the unemployment rate providing further reason for the heavily indebted household sector to spend cautiously extending the phase of soft economic growth. In essence this describes the “glass half empty” view of Australia’s economic prospects.
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by Stephen Roberts | Jan 5, 2015 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
Risk Assets were mixed in December; starting the month on a very weak note amid tumbling oil prices, but rallying strongly towards Christmas on evidence of US economic strength. The Australian equity market enjoyed one of the stronger rebounds later in the month, but mostly because it suffered the sharpest fall in November and early December. Over the month, the ASX 200 rose by 1.8% but recovered less than half of its 3.9% fall in November. The US equity market touched a record high in December, but faded towards month end with the S&P 500 lifting in December by only 0.1%. Other major equity markets were mostly weaker ranging from a fall of 0.1% for Japan’s Nikkei to a fall of 3.2% for the Eurostoxx 50. Problems in Greece again became a central focus with the risk of an election likely to be dominated by parties keen on withdrawing from the euro and ending austerity policies.
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