January 27
2022 Edition
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In the US the
rumbles from Russia and China continues with COVID maybe flattening in its
rates. Biden is also providing billions of free masks and RATs.
In the UK we
see sending of military supplies to try and help the Ukraine as well and
stronger rhetoric from the US, UK and EU. Boris J. looks like a 'dead man walking'.
In OZ we are
seeing the Morrison Government seemingly loose control of the COVID policy and
really seem to be on the back foot with the public. Elsewhere we are seeing a
global market sell off relating to the virus and increasing inflation etc. Grace Tame ended he tenure with a huge bang. Dylan A. was a great choice for this year I reckon!
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/why-we-don-t-have-a-us-style-inflation-problem-20220117-p59osy
Why we don’t have a US-style inflation problem
Karen Maley Columnist
Jan 18, 2022
– 5.00am
Not so fast.
Breathless
commentators have been quick to conclude that the surge in US inflation – which
dashed to an annual rate of 7 per cent in December, the fastest pace clip in
nearly four decades – will inevitably spread to Australia.
And they’ve
roused hapless punters from their summer lassitude with their dire warnings
that the Reserve
Bank of Australia will have no choice but to lift interest rates to combat
rampant inflation which, of course, means that banks will lift their home loan
rates.
But more
measured observers believe that these grim prophesies of rampant inflation and
rising interest rates are premature.
After all,
Australia’s underlying inflation rate was 2.1 per cent in the year to September
30 – only just managing to claw its way back within the Reserve Bank’s
inflation target band for the first time in six years.
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https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/turnbull-had-the-right-idea-on-china-20220115-p59ogw.html
Turnbull had the right idea on China
Tom Switzer
Contributor
January 18,
2022 — 5.30am
It’s
important, in the interests of constructive debate, to recognise when political
leaders who have been the object of serious criticism in the past turn out to
have done something right and to praise them fully for it.
Malcolm
Turnbull has had his critics over the years, including this writer. I’ve said
that, among other irreverent things, as prime minister (2015-18) he resembled –
gasp! – Kevin Rudd: adrift and at the mercy of events.
But credit
where it’s due: it’s now absolutely clear that Turnbull’s policy towards China
was very much in Australia’s best interests.
Indeed,
Turnbull established a model for other states to emulate as the US-China
security competition intensifies. He also, crucially, avoided the kind of
political tub-thumping posture towards our largest trade partner that sometimes
characterises his successor’s approach. Australia, as the former PM counsels,
must always be “the reasonable, rational party, open to rapprochement,
pragmatic and practical”.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/summer-of-frustration-has-angered-voters-20220117-p59oxl.html
Summer of frustration has angered voters
The Herald's View
January 18,
2022 — 5.00am
For many, the
spike in COVID-19 infections from mid-December interrupted Christmas gatherings
and upended holiday plans. Those needing a PCR test over the summer have been
forced to spend hours waiting in queues while home test kits have been scarce
and expensive.
Families have
been left confused by shifts in pandemic-related policies and unsure about what
is required from them amid surging case numbers.
Empty
supermarket shelves caused by predictable supply chain disruptions have stoked
a perception that our political leaders – who say Australia must now live with
the virus – underestimated the turmoil that mass illness would cause.
Businesses
are feeling the effects of a “self-imposed”
lockdown as many consumers limit their movements, and spending, to protect
themselves and their families. Real-time economic indicators, including bank
card spending data, point to a marked drop in
activity towards the end of last year and the start of 2022. But because no
lockdown declaration has been made, there is limited support for those who are
struggling. Subdued summer spending will hit small firms still reeling from the
pandemic’s disruptions and casts doubt on forecasts for a strong rebound from
last year’s lockdowns.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/in-grip-of-pincer-from-left-and-right-pm-faces-defeat/news-story/c8093a8152c4ad895d8a80dfc3761d3c
In grip of ‘pincer’ from left and right, PM faces defeat
Ross Fitzgerald
11:00PM
January 17, 2022
Last time
Scott Morrison faced a federal election, he pulled off a self-confessed
“miracle” victory. That happened in 2019, but it may not happen again. This is
because the Prime Minister faces a pincer movement from the left and the right.
Also, the never-ending Covid saga finds him increasingly trapped between a rock
and a very hard place.
The coming
election will most likely turn on the public’s perception of who can best keep
us safe. But regardless of its outcome, securing our personal health and safety
is set to remain the job of government rather than individuals. Thanks to
Covid, this election won’t replicate the standard Australian contest between
the party of more freedom versus the party of more government. Instead, it will
pit what has become the party of big government against the party of even
bigger government.
Even with the
Coalition in office, Australia’s pandemic response was always going to produce
a surge in spending and an increase in the size and the scope of government.
But current circumstances that put a premium on the ability to manage the
health crisis seem more likely to benefit Labor incumbents than Liberal, if
only because health is seen as a strength of the centre-left rather than the
centre-right.
Going into
the 2022 election, the government’s political difficulty is that it can hardly
reprise the 2019 scare campaign based on accusations that the opposition is
planning an irresponsible spending spree; nor, given its “net zero” commitment,
can the Coalition reproduce the successful campaign in resources seats about
Labor’s threat to jobs. And when it comes to protection against Covid, the
state Labor governments have always seemed more ferociously single-minded than
any of the Liberal ones. Scott Morrison’s problem is that he can’t really
portray himself as the country’s Covid fighter-in-chief as that task largely
fell to the states anyway; nor can he present himself as the architect of returning
to normal, as his government is as Covid-preoccupied as ever. And the one issue
that might have presented a defining difference between the parties, AUKUS, was
neutralised by Labor’s swift (and unexpected) concurrence.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/worst-january-consumer-confidence-result-since-1992-20220118-p59p43
Worst January consumer confidence result since 1992
John Kehoe Economics editor
Jan 18, 2022
– 1.19pm
Spending has
plunged during the omicron virus wave and consumer confidence has posted its
worst January result since 30 years ago, when the economy was emerging from a
painful recession, new economic surveys reveal.
As thousands
of people isolate across the country, spending on entertainment, travel and
hospitality has been slashed, while grocery spending has lifted as consumers
eat at home more instead of dining out.
ANZ bank
debit and credit card spending plummeted 27 per cent in the first half of
January, compared to the busy pre-Christmas period in the first half of
December.
While
spending typically drops early in the new year after Christmas, the spending
decline was six to 10 percentage points more than previous Januarys.
Consumer
confidence has slumped to its lowest level since October 2020, as the omicron
wave surged across Australia and virus testing facilities came under immense
strain, according to a separate ANZ-Roy Morgan survey.
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https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/what-bhp-s-big-move-home-means-for-the-australian-sharemarket-20220119-p59pdp.html
What BHP’s big move home means for the Australian sharemarket
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior
business columnist
January 19,
2022 — 11.05am
BHP’s 20-year
experiment with a sophisticated but unwieldy corporate structure will end this
week. Its demise has implications, not just for BHP and its shareholders here
and in the UK, but the wider Australian sharemarket.
On Thursday
BHP shareholders in Australia and the UK will vote to
dissolve the dual-listed entity structure constructed in 2001 for the Big
Australian’s merger with Billiton.
The structure
was ingenious, enabling the companies to avoid hefty tax events at both the
corporate and individual shareholder levels and preventing the “flow back” that
would normally occur in a cross-border merger as shareholders unwilling, or
without a mandate, to hold shares in a company listed in a different
jurisdiction sold out.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/no-one-left-behind-in-labor-blueprint-for-better-future/news-story/a5269b744f881899c84d627c03ea6492
No one left behind in Labor blueprint for better future
Anthony
Albanese
11:00PM
January 18, 2022
Australians
are not backward in coming forward when asked to give feedback to their
political leaders. That’s a good thing about democracy.
On the
weekend I completed a 10-day tour of Queensland, starting in Cairns and moving
south nearly 1700km to Brisbane, with visits to all large regional centres in
between.
I travelled
by road, talking to Queenslanders about their concerns on the ground as we
commence the third year of the Covid pandemic and head toward the coming
federal election. People are resilient, but they are frustrated over the
shortage of rapid antigen tests, the difficulty securing appointments for
vaccinations and the food shortages in supermarkets.
Australians
know these problems could have been avoided.
No one wants
more lockdowns. But most people I met struggled to understand how the Morrison
government failed to make better preparations for the reopening of the economy
after months of lockdowns caused by its slow rollout of Covid vaccines.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/dixon-advisory-files-for-voluntary-administration-as-claims-mount-20220119-p59pdi
Dixon
Advisory files for voluntary administration as claims mount
Jonathan Shapiro and Carrie LaFrenz
Updated Jan
19, 2022 – 1.11pm, first published at 9.33am
Embattled
wealth management firm Dixon Advisory has filed for voluntary administration
after its directors determined that mounting liabilities from class actions,
settlements and regulatory penalties would leave the entity insolvent.
In a
statement to the ASX on Wednesday, the firm’s parent company, E&P Financial
Group, said PwC partners Stephen Longley and Craig Crosbie had been appointed
as voluntary administrators to Dixon Advisory Superannuation Services, after
the directors determined that “mounting actual and potential liabilities mean
it is likely to become insolvent at some future time”.
The
appointment of the voluntary administrators only relates to DASS, and does not
affect any other E&P Financial entities or internal funds. Claimants
against DASS have no recourse to other entities within E&P Financial.
It is
understood that AFCA claims alone – believed to be below $10 million – would
not have tipped Dixon Advisory over the edge, but when combined with the ASIC
penalty and costs, as well as any class actions, it was clear there was no
other option.
The claims
include possible damages from two
separate class actions led by Piper Alderman and Shine Lawyers, Dixon
client claims being handled by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority,
and a
$7.2 million settlement with the Australian Securities and Investments
Commission.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/sympathy-but-no-sorry-from-morrison-20220119-p59pfw
Sympathy but no ‘sorry’ from Morrison
Morrison may
not always be to blame, but such is a prime minister’s lot, he has to wear it
anyway.
Andrew Tillett
Political correspondent
Jan 19, 2022
– 3.33pm
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison’s Wednesday news conference was one of the more
uncomfortable ones that he has endured in the pandemic.
During a
20-minute opening statement, Morrison told the nation he felt people’s
frustration at coronavirus
ruining their summer – but it’s not his fault.
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison and Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg speak to the
media.
When trying
to strike an empathetic tone over matters such as testing queues and shortages,
empty supermarket
shelves and stressed-out hospitals, Morrison began with an appeal to keep
things in perspective.
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https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/how-investors-are-preparing-for-a-unified-bhp-20220119-p59pfo
How investors are preparing for a unified BHP
Alex Gluyas Markets
reporter
Jan 20, 2022
– 5.00am
Investors are
preparing for the arrival of a unified BHP on Australian shores as the mining
giant appears set to unseat Commonwealth Bank as the economy’s largest listed
company in a move that will reshape the local sharemarket.
At 6pm (AEDT)
on Thursday, shareholders of BHP Group Limited and its London market presence,
BHP Group Plc, will vote on a proposal to end the dual-listing structure and
transform the miner into a single ASX-listed company. At least 75 per cent of
votes in both stocks in favour of the proposal are required for unification to
succeed.
A successful
vote would result in the transferral of Plc shares to the ASX-listed BHP, and
see BHP’s weighting in the S&P/ASX 200 Index swell to above 10 per cent, from
around 6.2 per cent.
Index manager
S&P DJI revealed last week it would up-weight
BHP on the S&P/ASX indices all at once before trading opened on January
31 if the proposal was approved, despite concerns that such a move could
instigate volatility.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/furious-youthquake-may-rock-political-foundations-20220120-p59ppu.html
Furious ‘youthquake’ may rock political foundations
David Crowe
Chief
political correspondent
January 21,
2022 — 5.30am
The Omicron
strain is spreading so fast that every part of the community will feel its
impact and the most vulnerable Australians – especially the elderly – will
suffer the greatest risk of hospitalisation and death.
Yet, the
latest wave is surging through younger age groups in a way that highlights the
generation gap and might unleash a real force at the coming election.
The virus is
rife among Australians under 30 for good reasons. Many work in the front lines
of this pandemic in jobs that make contact with other people essential. They
are waiting on tables, stocking supermarket shelves, delivering food. Many are
keeping the economy running in the jobs that nobody notices.
And they are
last in line for the vaccines. They have waited their turn, done what the
nation’s politicians asked of them and now, finally, qualify for booster shots.
The timing has been against them: the boosters came too late to help many of
them against Omicron.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/aukus-defence-must-ditch-peacetime-mindset-amid-strategic-crisis/news-story/2a40eb4086d7e529dbc87df9c1eaccb2
AUKUS: Defence must ditch peacetime mindset amid strategic crisis
Peter Jennings
11:00PM
January 20, 2022
As Defence’s
deputy secretary for strategy between 2009 and 2012, I asked US counterparts on
three occasions about the likelihood they would share submarine nuclear
propulsion technology.
The answer
was the same each time: there was no way the US Navy or Department of Energy
would hand Australia the technology. Britain had been given access in 1958
under conditions where even today the US has stringent oversight of its
capability, but that was the limit of American openness.
The American
judgment was that we should stick to our quiet conventional submarines, which
the US military valued highly.
Two things
have changed since then: first, Communist China presents a near-term existential
threat to the global strategic balance and second, Joe Biden is US President.
The China threat will outlast Biden but the key question for Australia is: will
AUKUS survive a change of president?
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/editorials/west-divided-putin-masses-troops-on-ukraine-border/news-story/eb82b19363388b93c1b56b6fe1c5622a
West divided, Putin masses troops on Ukraine border
Editorial
11:00PM
January 20, 2022
It was no
surprise White House officials felt the need to issue an urgent clarification
only 30 minutes after Joe Biden finished talking about the deepening Ukraine
crisis at his press conference on Thursday Australian time. His admission that
he regards Vladimir Putin taking action to “move in” and invade Ukraine as
inevitable, and that the US response will “depend on what he does”, needed to
be explained. So did his implied acceptance that a smaller invasion by Russia,
what he termed a “minor incursion”, might not merit the same tough response
from the Western allies. “I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will
be held accountable if it invades, and it depends on what it does,” Mr Biden
said. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and then we end up having a
fight about what to do and what not to do, et cetera.” He also said: “If they
do what they are capable of doing, with the force amassed on the border, it is
going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine. And our
allies and partners are ready to impose severe cost and significant harm on
Russia and the Russian economy.”
By implying
that a “minor” invasion might not invoke the same penalties as a major
invasion, Mr Biden has played into Mr Putin’s hands. He has undermined what is
already a largely incoherent Western response to the Russian despot’s
outrageous ambition to restore what he describes as “Greater Russia” to its
days as the USSR.
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https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/rate-nerves-plunge-asx-to-largest-weekly-loss-in-14-months-20220121-p59q2t
Rate nerves plunge ASX to largest weekly loss in 14 months
Sharemarkets:
Rate nerves plunge ASX to largest weekly loss in 14 months
Alex Gluyas Markets
reporter
Jan 21, 2022
– 4.31pm
Australian
shares suffered a bruising session on Friday as concerns about an imminent
tightening of monetary policy ahead of next week’s Federal Open Market
Committee (FOMC) meeting triggered a broad-based sell-off.
The
S&P/ASX 200 dropped 2.9 per cent to 7175.8 this week, with Friday’s loss of
2.3 per cent, or 166.6 points, marking the biggest, single-day decline in two
weeks. It was the benchmark’s largest weekly loss since October 2020.
“Less than a
week out from the FOMC meeting, investors are worried that the central bank is
going to flag aggressive rate hikes and an imminent and rapid unwind of its
balance,” said Kyle Rodda, market analyst at IG.
“In effect,
it may throw the stock market under the bus to stamp out inflation,” he said.
The US Federal Reserve’s FOMC meets on January 25-26.
The local
market took a weak lead from Wall Street where all three major benchmarks fell
as the technology-heavy Nasdaq plunged into a correction, closing the session
at its lowest level since June.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/it-s-reasonable-to-assume-equities-will-return-to-pre-pandemic-peak-20220119-p59pgs
It’s reasonable to assume equities will return to pre-pandemic peak
With the
Fed behind the inflation curve, expect six to seven interest rate hikes this
year and a torrid time for stocks.
Christopher Joye
Columnist
Jan 21, 2022
– 1.27pm
For the first
time in a long time, we agree with Jeremy Grantham – equities likely need to
correct quite significantly. Here are some simple mental models. The
cyclically-adjusted Shiller price-earnings (p/e) ratio is sitting at 37 times
compared to its long-run mean of 17 times and median of 16 times. The only time
in the last 150 years it has been higher was just before the 50 per cent drop
in US equities during the “tech wreck”, which resulted in the Shiller p/e
falling from 44 to 21 times.
If we suppose
that it is reasonable for US shares to normalise back to their pre-pandemic
peak on the basis that investors incorrectly extrapolated ultra-low inflation
and 10-year bond yields in perpetuity, stocks would need to adjust downwards by
28 per cent.
If we
consider a more serious downside scenario whereby equities mean-revert to their
December 2018 level (which is when the Fed last had its cash rate at a
“neutral” level of 2.5 per cent), shares would have to drop 48 per cent. There
are many shortcomings with this analysis. One of the biggest is that this time
is different to the recent past in so many ways. Unfortunately, that point of
difference implies even greater downside risk.
When was the
last time you can remember a US president egging on the Fed to crush inflation
and raise interest rates? When do you last recall inflation being a major US
political issue? The post-GFC period has been defined by politicians trying to
strong-arm central banks into easier, not tighter, policy settings.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/election-closes-in-as-pandemic-finishing-line-recedes-once-more-20220120-p59ptx
Election closes in as pandemic finishing line recedes once more
Politicians
try to paper over their loss of control as voters resign themselves to waiting
out the end of the pandemic.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Jan 21, 2022
– 4.17pm
Observing how
fast things keep changing during the pandemic, a senior Morrison government
minister observed to colleagues this week that it was unlikely voters would
still be talking about the supply of rapid antigen tests when they go to the
polls.
His point was
that all sorts of new issues could have erupted by whenever the election is
actually held, but it was also telling that he made the link.
The election
seemed to loom just as large – if unmentioned – at Wednesday’s prime
ministerial press conference, which opened with an
extraordinary 21-minute defensive monologue from Scott Morrison expressing
his empathy for people’s frustration with the way the summer has unfolded, and
a long list of everything he and his government have done to deal with
COVID-19.
“You’ve seen
queues, you’ve seen rising cases, you’ve seen pressures on hospital systems,
you’ve seen disruption of supply chains, you’ve seen shortages of tests, you’ve
seen all of these in all of these countries all around the world,” Morrison
said, repeatedly emphasising that it was happening to everyone and that, in
fact, Australia’s record is better than most.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/more-future-than-past-in-uk-connection-20220120-p59ptv
More future than past in UK connection
The
comfort blanket of shared history obscures the fact that Britain and Australia
have many complementary assets to offer in their relations with the rest of the
Indo-Pacific.
Ben Bland Contributor
Jan 21, 2022
– 2.08pm
In the midst
of a security crisis in Ukraine and a domestic political crisis that may unseat
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign and defence ministers have
chosen to fly to the other side of the world for talks with their Australian
counterparts.
It looks like
a strange decision at first glance.
But this
week’s visit by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and
Defence Secretary Ben
Wallace suggests that Britain is serious about its “tilt” to the
Indo-Pacific, which was announced last year as part of a broad review of
British security and foreign policy.
This shift
has been welcomed by an Australian government that has a similar view of China
as a growing threat to the existing global order, and shares many political
inclinations (and political advisers) with its conservative British peers.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-issues-hurting-the-coalition-s-vote-in-horror-polling-week-20220121-p59q77.html
The issues hurting the Coalition’s vote in horror polling week
By David Crowe
January 22,
2022 — 5.00am
The anger at
the federal government over the Omicron wave has been no surprise to some of
Scott Morrison’s supporters when record numbers of Australians are being
infected with the coronavirus, forced into isolation or turned away at
pharmacies that have run out of tests.
Liberals and
Nationals are fighting for the government’s survival in electorates across the
country and can feel the mood turn against the Prime Minister over his handling
of the pandemic.
The doubts
over the government’s competence are impossible to ignore in the survey of
voters published this week and showing primary vote support
for the Coalition fell from 39 to 34 per cent from November to January.
The primary
vote results in the exclusive Resolve Political Monitor showed an increase in
Labor’s core support from 32 to 35 per cent, putting Opposition Leader Anthony
Albanese in a strong position ahead of the federal election.
Liberals knew
this was coming after the surge in Omicron cases, the pressure on hospitals,
the shortage of rapid antigen tests and the disruption to families at Christmas
and New Year.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/a-lack-of-attention-can-be-devastating-enraging/news-story/c464b83533f876130eba90fd0b3ccae9
A lack of attention can be devastating, enraging
Nikki Gemmell
The
Weekend Australian Magazine
11:00PM
January 21, 2022
Attention
connects. It’s a hand reaching out, a gift, a balm; it mollifies and repairs. A
lack of attention can be devastating. Enraging. It can create monsters. Think
of the indignant roar of those men facing the retreat of the liberated woman’s
subservient attention. The incels who feel the uppity women of this era aren’t
giving them enough reverence. Trump’s acolytes who feel belittled, left behind
by the woke brigade. Anti-vaxxers rampaging maskless through city streets and protesters
lighting the doors to that grand old lady of our nation, old Parliament House.
They all want
attention. To be listened to. Seen. A lack of attention can trigger violence,
destruction, anarchy; it can also stimulate change at the ballot box. And over
this fraught summer it felt like the Australian people were being ghosted, in
terms of attention, as a wily new Covid variant raged among them. How quickly
will we forget the trials of our festive season, when there seemed like a void,
an abrogation of responsibility at the nation’s heart? There were struggles
with Covid testing queues, home testing kit supplies, hospital staffing,
grocery supply lines. The festive season was ruined for many as they struggled
with Omicron’s muscularity. Did the governments – state and federal –
understand the depth of the problem? Prepare?
It felt like
a struggling populace was not given the gift of attention by politicians bowing
to their gods of ideology over the grim realities of medicine; a PM holding up
his Christmas barra and laughing at the cricket. Australia had been the envy of
the world for so long, holding the line with brutal lockdown sacrifices. But in
mid December, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet decided to let it all rip. Just as
Omicron was taking off.
The consequence:
uncertainty, fury, panic. And as a new school year loomed. All my life there’d
been a perception of this country as an efficient, enviable nation, a paragon
of smooth functioning. Yet over this summer that perception broke down, and
shockingly quickly. What would Australia be like in war, if we were ever
invaded? In terms of being prepared, fleet of foot, quick with readiness. What
I saw over this summer was a failure to lead when we needed it most. A friend,
a despairing Sydney GP, said “the silence was deafening” in terms of how her
business was expected to manage through the crisis.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/retirement-plus-inflation-adds-up-to-trouble-for-savings/news-story/9d69db0099a45a7f85e3ec35e143fb2a
Retirement plus inflation can add up to trouble for savings
By Rodney
Horin
4:37PM
January 21, 2022
An
83-year-old client came into my office recently and conceded that he was
worried about his future finances.
He said he
had done some back-of-the-envelope calculations and realised that his $1m of
savings would probably not last if he and his wife lived for another 10 years
or so. He is in good health, but he feels his wife will soon need to go into
aged care, meaning a potential RAD (bond) of $700,000-$1m, and monthly care
fees of $3000-$5000.
My client has
had a good life. He has worked hard, he ran and sold his business well,
travelled and helped his children with their mortgages and school fees. But
only now has it dawned on him that his remaining retirement savings may not be
enough.
He never took
time to seek advice on how long his funds could last based on critical
assumptions of annual living costs and potential longevity risk for him and his
wife. Throughout his working life he focused on accumulating his super fund but
he did not think about the financial realities of his retirement.
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COVID 19 Information
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/omicron-economic-hit-not-as-bad-as-lockdown-pain-deloitte-20220114-p59oav
Omicron economic hit not as bad as ‘lockdown pain’: Deloitte
John Kehoe Economics editor
Jan 17, 2022
– 5.00am
The hit to
supply chains and workers from the omicron virus wave will not derail the
economy like earlier lockdowns, according to a new report by Deloitte Access
Economics.
About half of
Australia’s 13 million workers will skip work for a week in the first half of
this year due to COVID-19-linked isolation, but the highly vaccinated economy
will be resilient enough to ride out the omicron virus wave, Deloitte says.
The firm’s
business outlook tips omicron to weigh on business investment due to increased
uncertainty and slow the return of foreign students and tourists.
But it forecasts
the economy to grow a healthy 4 per cent this year, a marked improvement on the
contraction in quarterly growth during hard lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/self-imposed-shadow-lockdown-is-crimping-consumer-spending-20220116-p59ojm.html
Self-imposed shadow lockdown is crimping consumer spending
Jennifer Duke
Economics
correspondent
January 17,
2022 — 5.00am
There was a
time when getting a notification on your phone was fun.
I’ll admit
though that now whenever my mobile pings, I look down at it with a bit of fear
because it’s most likely Service NSW telling me I have been somewhere that also
had a COVID-19 case. The day freezes for a minute as I scroll through my recent
history to find the location and consider whether I had been too close to
anyone that day or forgotten to wipe down the trolley.
No matter how
quick I had tried to be at the grocery store or the service station, nor how
infrequent the trip, it seems there’s no escaping the reminder that the virus
is lurking almost everywhere. You can wash your hands and wear a mask, both
useful in helping protect yourself, but Omicron is not slowing down.
So it’s no
surprise some people are feeling cautious right now about where they want to go
and what they want to do. Staying home where possible, particularly while there
are daily reports the health system is under strain, is a rational option.
It seems many
have the same idea. There are already signs people are in their own
self-imposed “shadow lockdown” as Omicron cases surge. While it’s early days on
the data front, with the official statistics bureau getting through critical
November data releases, card
spending measures from ANZ for early January along with CreditorWatch
statistics for December show a significant drop in activity towards the end
of last year and the start of 2022.
-----
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2022/01/17/omicron-neoliberalism-alan-kohler/
6:00am, Jan
17, 2022 Updated: 8:12pm, Jan 16
Alan Kohler: Neoliberalism is at the heart of the Omicron shambles
Opinion
Alan Kohler
It’s a month
since the Australian Financial Review ran the memorable headline: “Morrison
stares down Omicron: ‘It’s manageable’”.
It was a
reasonable spin to put on the Prime Minister’s announcement that opening the
borders to skilled migrants and foreign students would go ahead, followed up by
his “victory lap” speech to the Sydney Institute that night.
“In a truly
global pandemic, Australia’s response has been a positive standout,” declared
Scott Morrison, listing the ways in which the pandemic was now in the rear-view
mirror while his government’s sights “are firmly through that windscreen on the
road ahead”.
But oh boy,
that speech and the AFR’s headline have not aged well.
In the days
following, the Morrison government and most of the states removed most pandemic
restrictions for Christmas, to everyone’s relief but against the advice of
epidemiologists.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/in-covid19-pandemic-australia-beats-global-trend-as-life-expectancy-improves/news-story/f3de8c9d7e1a19fb31309ca4b6229f1a
In Covid-19 pandemic, Australia beats global trend as life expectancy
improves
Rhiannon Down
11:30PM
January 16, 2022
Covid-19
lockdowns have had the unexpected effect of extending the lifespan of
Australians, bucking a global trend that saw life expectancies shrink in many
parts of the world.
Australian
National University researchers have found that the average lifespan increased
by 0.7 years – the equivalent of about eight months – in Australia in 2020 for
both men and women, likely because of lower rates of other illness such as
influenza, a drop in cancer and heart disease and fewer road accidents because
of lower social mobility.
While life
expectancy fell by 1.7 years for women and 2.2 years for men in the US – where
several devastating waves of infection left more than 800,000 dead – it
increased in Denmark by 0.1 year and Norway by 0.2 years.
ANU School of
Demography researcher Vladimir Canudas-Romo, who co-wrote the paper, said the
jump in life expectancy was a major increase compared to other nations and the
usual growth recorded each year.
“It surprised
me a lot; in the past decade, Australia has not been increasing particularly,
our life expectancy is increasing very modestly by one month or 1.5 months each
year,” professor Canudas-Romo said.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/retail/were-not-off-the-hook-in-supply-crisis-sushi-shortages-are-just-a-symptom-of-a-broader-problem/news-story/a8f9fdfe640ba319ba70e46576f0cb9d
We’re not off the hook in supply crisis: sushi shortages are just a
symptom of a broader problem
Jared Lynch
7:41PM
January 16, 2022
Sunday may be
the traditional day of rest – but not for David Williams. As he slaps an
oversized salmon on his kitchen bench, he recalls a lunch he had at Melbourne
Japanese restaurant Kenzan last week.
The chefs had
prepared a sushi and sashimi platter at the restaurant a stone’s throw from Williams’
office at the Paris end of Collins Street.
As he set his
eyes on the meal, something was missing. “Sorry, we have no tuna,” the waiter
says.
Their
supplier is not delivering from Sydney, citing Covid-19 restrictions. Kenzan is
not alone. Covid-19 isolation rules have sparked chaos along the food supply
chain, from grocery shortages at Coles and Woolworths to cafes and restaurants
being forced to close because they can’t access ingredients or staff.
While the big
supermarket chains expect these shortages to ease in coming weeks, Williams –
who runs boutique corporate advisory Kidder Williams, with clients spanning the
who’s who of agribusiness – expects the crisis to be longer-lasting.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/omicron-to-curb-economic-growth-in-australia-warns-deloitte-partner/news-story/d51e0845729f4dc2030adac2a03f1f1e
Omicron ‘to curb economic growth’ in Australia, warns Deloitte partner
Greg Brown
6:07AM
January 17, 2022
The Omicron
variant is forecast to limit Australia’s economic growth to 4 per cent this
year, down from the 5.5 per cent predicted by the Reserve Bank of Australia
before the emergence of the strain.
Deloitte
Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said Omicron was spreading at such a
rapid rate that half of the workforce would likely miss an extra week of work
in the first half of the year.
“That is the
main reason why our forecasts for 2022 are more modest than those of the RBA
(released in) November,” Mr Richardson said.
“They have
5.5 per cent real GDP growth in the year to December 2022, whereas we have 4
per cent, with Omicron weighing on everything from business investment … to borders.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/virus-deaths-in-2022-running-at-triple-the-pace-of-delta-wave-20220117-p59oqz
Virus deaths in 2022 running at triple the pace of delta wave
Tom McIlroy Political
reporter
Jan 17, 2022
– 4.34pm
NSW’s top doctor Kerry
Chant has warned of growing COVID-19 fatalities in coming days, as the pace
of the omicron wave outstrips previous variants.
In 2022, to
date 460 people have died. Those deaths have occurred at more than triple the
pace experienced during last year’s delta wave in Australia.
NSW has
recorded 17 deaths and 29, 594 new COVID-19 cases, 11,858 from positive rapid
antigen tests.
There were
more than 1330 deaths recorded in Australia between July 11 and December 31,
2021, an average of eight deaths a day at the height of the delta wave.
Since January
1 this year, a month after omicron cases were first recorded in Australia,
there has been an average of 27 deaths a day, a significant increase in the
rate of fatalities. It is possible that some deaths this year were due to the
delta variant.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/deported-djokovic-gets-hero-s-welcome-in-serbia-20220118-p59p08
Israel study: fourth dose shows limited results with omicron
AP
An Israeli
hospital on Monday said preliminary research indicates a fourth dose of the
coronavirus vaccine provides only limited defence against the omicron variant
that is raging around the world.
Sheba
Hospital last month began administering a fourth vaccine to more than 270
medical workers — 154 who received a Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine and 120 others who
received Moderna’s. All had previously been vaccinated three times with the
Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine.
The clinical
trial found that both groups showed increases in antibodies “slightly higher”
than following the third vaccine last year. But it said the increased
antibodies did not prevent the spread of omicron.
“Despite
increased antibody levels, the fourth vaccine only offers a partial defence
against the virus,” said Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the hospital’s
infection disease unit. “The vaccines, which were more effective against
previous variants, offer less protection versus omicron.”
-----
https://www.theage.com.au/national/unions-threaten-to-stop-work-unless-omicron-safety-measures-improve-20220117-p59ov2.html
Unions threaten to stop work unless Omicron safety measures improve
By Benjamin Preiss
January 17,
2022 — 6.01pm
Unions have
warned that employees will go on strike if their bosses do not provide enough
protection from the fast-spreading Omicron variant as tensions mount over the
response to the virus.
But the
national employer association has accused the unions of inflaming the
situation, saying business could not afford limitless tests and threats of work
stoppages were not appropriate when employers were already struggling to
preserve jobs.
The union
movement is demanding urgent Omicron risk assessments, free rapid antigen tests
and N95 masks, and upgraded safety protections as COVID-19 continues playing
havoc with supply chains of essential items including food.
ACTU
secretary Sally McManus said unions would write to all employers reminding them
of their obligations to take all reasonable steps to keep workers safe.
-----
https://www.ausdoc.com.au/opinion/should-we-reopen-schools-or-not-its-more-complicated
Should we reopen schools or not? It’s more complicated than that
Professor
Stephen Leeder
Professor
Leeder is an emeritus professor of public health and community medicine at the
Menzies Centre for Health Policy and School of Public Health, University of
Sydney.
19th January
2022
The dozens
of passionate comments
left on the AusDoc website as to whether schools
should open shortly reveal how difficult it is to make wise
decisions in an emotionally fraught setting (as when the health of
our children is at stake) without a solid base of
facts.
It is a
terribly complicated matter, unlikely to be
resolved painlessly.
Children,
parents, teachers, and workplaces will all be affected one way
or another. What might be workable in one locality may
not work in another – making a ‘one-size-fits-all’
solution an awkward fit.
We know that
COVID-19 thrives in areas of low-socioeconomic privilege, and we
should attend especially to the needs of schools in
poorer areas when considering closing them.
The Australian
Bureau of Statistics compared the distribution of deaths reported as
due to COVID-19 up to the end of July 2021 in five equal
groups, or quintiles, of the population according
to socio-economic status.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/infrastructure/everything-is-about-to-get-more-expensive-thanks-to-covid-levies-20220119-p59peq
Everything is about to get more expensive thanks to ‘COVID levies’
Jenny Wiggins
Infrastructure reporter
Jan 19, 2022
– 5.04pm
New “COVID
levies” charged by logistics companies to recover higher costs incurred during
the pandemic are being watched by the competition watchdog for any signs of
collusion.
Several big
logistics groups, including ACFS Port Logistics, Qube Holdings, Silk Contract
Logistics and Melbourne stevedore Victoria International Container Terminal
(VICT) have hit customers with new fees that they claim are needed to recoup
the cost of paying workers overtime.
ACFS has told
customers that its business is suffering from “extreme cost pressures and
inefficiency” due to workers either getting COVID-19 or isolating at home with
a positive case in their household, requiring a short- term “COVID levy”.
ACFS is
charging east coast customers an extra $25 per container for moving the
containers through its terminals, yards or warehouses. The fee is only charged
once per container.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/medical-regulator-approves-first-two-covid-19-treatments-20220120-p59psu
Medical regulator approves first two COVID-19 treatments
Tom McIlroy Political
reporter
Jan 20, 2022
– 3.14pm
Vulnerable Australians
diagnosed with COVID-19 will have access to two new anti-viral treatments
after the medical regulator approved the oral drugs for mild cases.
The
government ordered 300,000 courses of Merck’s Lagevrio, also known as molnupiravir,
and 500,00 courses of Pfizer’s Paxlovid, known as nirmatrelvir and ritonavir.
They are the
first oral treatment options to be approved in Australia but the Therapeutic
Goods Administration stressed they are not a substitute for vaccination.
Health Minister Greg
Hunt said the drugs were effective in treating people with mild to moderate
COVID-19 symptoms but at high risk of progressing to severe disease, and would
help reduce admissions to hospital and intensive care. Death rates should also
be lower, he said.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rpa-department-head-lashes-politically-driven-management-of-crisis-20220119-p59pgn.html
RPA department head lashes ‘politically-driven’ management of crisis
By Lucy Carroll and Mary
Ward
January 20,
2022 — 5.00am
A
high-ranking doctor from one of Sydney’s biggest hospitals has lashed the
“politically driven” management of the pandemic, as thousands of health staff
remain on COVID-19 leave and the number of hospitals treating coronavirus
patients has grown to nearly 100.
In a video
briefing to junior staff, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital executive clinical
director Professor Paul Torzillo told doctors that directives from state and
federal health departments were being filtered by the hospital to determine
what was appropriate for staff and patients.
“Increasingly,
the pronouncements coming from government are completely politically driven and
... not health-based,” he said in a recording viewed by the Herald.
There are now
95 hospitals managing coronavirus patients across NSW – up from 73 last week.
About 5300 staff are on leave due to COVID-19 exposure, placing huge strain on
the system.
The video
from last week featuring Professor Torzillo is a rare insight into the
unvarnished views of senior health staff and how the health system is caught
between the pressures of shortening isolation for health workers and the need
to keep the infection out of hospitals.
-----
https://medicalrepublic.com.au/we-need-to-talk-about-masks/61243
21 January
2022
We need to talk about masks
By Euan
Tovey
Today US
President Joe Biden’s administration has begun shipping free N95 respirators to
all US citizens.
This is both
welcome and radical. It recognises two components that have long been missing
from an evidenced-based approach to managing the highly transmissible
SARS-CoV-2. First, that significant transmission occurs via aerosols, and
secondly that the gold standard of masks, or respirators, provide efficient
protection against such aerosols, and should replace the use of surgical and
cloth masks.
These are
major departures from positions held two years earlier. These moves have been
driven by important debates and transparent information exchange among the US
government, academic circles and the mainstream media.
At the start
of the pandemic, the conventional public health view was that SARS-CoV-2
transmission was via particles >5-10µm diameter – droplets – generated
during coughing, talking and other respiratory activities, and thence via
virus-contaminated surfaces (fomites). Smaller particles, termed “aerosols”,
<5µm, were clinically important only when generated by certain “aerosol
generating” medical procedures. Thus, healthcare workers, were advised to use
“droplet precautions”, including surgical masks, when managing suspected-covid
patients, except during aerosol-generating procedures, when N95 respirators
were to be used.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/the-smart-ways-to-outmanoeuvre-omicron-20220120-p59pq5
The smart ways to outmanoeuvre omicron
With omicron,
you never know which small protective act might have saved you from infection
this week.
Jill Margo Health editor
Jan 21, 2022
– 10.27am
Next time you
get in a taxi, sit in the back seat diagonal to the driver. If you are serious
about outsmarting omicron, ask for all the windows to remain open. If that is
not possible, the air-conditioning should be on, but not on recycle.
Both you and
the driver should be masked and when you get out, it is best to wash your
hands, according to leading environmental health expert, Professor Sotiris
Vardoulakis, of the Australian National University.
These small
tips inform personal responsibility, and are exactly what the new breed of
“COVID-19 chasers” don’t want to hear. They are actively seeking to be
infected, sitting in cars with friends who have COVID-19, going
to pandemic parties or mingling in crowds, unmasked.
They figure
that omicron is mild and the sooner they get over the whole damn business, the
better. Some have an important event coming up and think they can control the
timing of their recovery.
-----
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2022/01/20/omicron-natural-disaster-kohler/
6:00am, Jan
20, 2022 Updated: 11:11am, Jan 20
Alan Kohler: Omicron is a natural disaster. We should treat it as one
Alan Kohler
Economically,
the COVID-19 pandemic has changed from being a government-mandated recession to
a natural disaster, and should be treated as that.
Government-imposed
lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 produced three quarterly GDP contractions out of six
over 18 months, including the minus 7 per cent all-time record in the June
quarter of 2020.
Unemployment
and hardship would have been horrific. But because they were the direct cause
of the freeze in economic activity, federal and state governments rightly felt
obliged to fully compensate the businesses and individuals affected.
In fact, in
the case of the Morrison government’s JobKeeper program, they went overboard,
allowing it to become an unchecked, secret windfall for businesses that didn’t
need it as well as those that did.
-----
Climate Change.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/financial-services/asx-200-warned-on-green-targets-state-street-pressures-boards/news-story/4f7dc3aa9424b34029b345eca0868fe9
Green targets: State Street puts ASX 200 boards on notice
Eric Johnston
9:06PM
January 16, 2022
One of the
world’s biggest money managers has put Australian companies on notice they need
to come clean on how they intend to hit net zero targets, arguing that climate
change represents a “systemic risk” that has the potential to destroy value.
State Street
Global Advisers, which has more than $US4.3 trillion ($6 trillion) deployed in
shares around the world, has told Australian boards that it wants to stamp out
“brown-spinning” and will work with companies that are sitting on highly
polluting assets to help them shift away from these over the long term.
This is
intended to ensure companies don’t simply sell the dirty assets to private
equity, which reduces disclosure and makes listed companies appear more
“green”.
State Street
is the single biggest investor in the Australian stockmarket with $271.6bn
under management across the ASX 200. While the bulk of its funds are in passive
index-based funds, it intends to use the votes that come with these holdings to
directly pressure boards.
State Street
chief executive Cyrus Taraporevala said time was running out for companies to
make the required progress, particularly with many businesses under global
pressure to halve emissions by the end of the decade.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/construction-of-australia-s-largest-wind-farm-begins-20220117-p59ouj
Construction of Australia’s largest wind farm begins
Colin Packham Energy and
Resources reporter
Jan 17, 2022
– 4.27pm
Construction
work on Australia’s largest onshore wind farm has begun, which when operational
will underpin South Australia’s ambitious target of becoming a major exporter
of renewable power.
Ambitious
French renewable energy company Neoen – which is also building Australia’s
largest solar farm in Queensland and has installed the country’s largest
battery in Victoria – said the 412 megawatt wind farm is expected to be
operational in 2024.
Once up and
running, Neoen said it will sell 100MW of the power produced to the ACT after
striking a deal with the territory government that also will see it build a
100MW battery in Canberra.
The project
will further fuel the boom in Australian renewable power generation, which is
pressuring traditional fossil fuel generators, and spur growth in wind power
production, which has slowed in recent months.
Wind
generation in the final three months of 2021 grew at just 6.4 per cent, data
showed earlier this month. That compared with almost 25 per cent growth in 2019
and 19.6 per cent in 2020.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/this-ship-is-carrying-australia-s-energy-future-at-minus-253c-20220119-p59pfp
This ship is carrying Australia’s energy future - at minus 253C
Angela
Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
Jan 20, 2022
– 10.30pm
History will
be made next week when Australia ships the world’s first cargo of liquid
hydrogen, an event that will mark a milestone in a looming transformation of
exports with one of the country’s most important partners amid the energy
transition.
The first
ever liquefied hydrogen tanker, the Suiso Frontier, docked at the port of
Hastings on Thursday and is due to depart again within a week with its shipment
of hydrogen, derived from a
$500 million Japanese-backed pilot project tapping the vast but
carbon-intensive brown coal fields of the Latrobe Valley.
The project,
which requires the extracted carbon to be used or buried, signals the potential
emergence of a new low-carbon trade with Japan, which has been Australia’s
largest buyer of emissions-heavy coal and LNG over the last several decades but
which in October 2020 set a 2050 target to reach net zero emissions.
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison said the project is “key to both Australia and Japan
and our hydrogen industries” and demonstrates the commitment of the two nations
to cooperate in decarbonisation. Mr Morrison announced $7.5 million of funding
to support the $184 million next stage of the project to take it through to
commercial operations.
“This project
can be a kind of front-runner to achieve clean, new energy for Japan,” said
Yuko Fukuma, spokeswoman at Kawasaki Heavy Industries for the tanker that the
Japanese firm developed and built over the last five years.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
No entries
for this category.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/australia-s-low-inflation-bubble-could-pop-this-week-20220113-p59o14
Australia’s low-inflation bubble could pop next week
A
higher-than-expected number on Tuesday could reshape the narrative around
interest rates, the recovery and the 2022 federal election.
Warren Hogan Columnist
Jan 16, 2022
– 2.55pm
The inflation
result on Tuesday next week could be one of the most influential Australian economic
statistics released in 2022.
It has the
potential to reshape the narrative around the pandemic recovery as well as
increase pressure on the Reserve Bank to wind back stimulus and even
contemplate rate hikes later in the year.
But probably
the most profound short-term implication could be for the government ahead of
the imminent federal election.
The global
inflation story is moving quickly. In the final three months of 2021,
global inflation accelerated once again after a brief reprieve in July and
August. This has been most pronounced in the United States, where inflation
rose to 7 per cent in the year to December, the highest since 1982.
The
acceleration of inflation around the world in recent months has been
significant because it has put paid to the view that the pandemic-induced
inflation spike from earlier in 2021 was temporary.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/jobless-rate-fall-to-4-2pc-pressures-rba-on-interest-rates-20220120-p59pqy
Plunge in jobless rate could force RBA to raise rates sooner
John Kehoe Economics editor
Updated Jan
20, 2022 – 3.22pm, first published at 12.32pm
The
unemployment rate fell to just 4.2 per cent last month before the omicron virus
wave disrupted the economy, the lowest jobless rate since the mining boom in
2008.
The hiring
spree since the end of the delta lockdowns in NSW and Victoria last year will
put pressure on the Reserve Bank of Australia to consider raising interest
rates sooner than expected, possibly this year.
The RBA has
previously said the unemployment rate needs to fall to the high 3s or low 4s to
hit full employment and generate stronger wages growth, which would help lift
inflation and enable the central bank to increase borrowing costs.
The addition
of 64,800 jobs in December, which was reported on Thursday by the Australian
Bureau of Statistics, caused the national unemployment rate to fall from 4.6
per cent in November.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/the-fundie-searching-for-the-next-fisher-and-paykel-20220114-p59o6y
The fundie searching for the next Fisher & Paykel
William McInnes
Reporter
Jan 17, 2022
– 5.00am
Ellume was
the first rapid antigen test provider to get FDA approval in the US, but most
Australian fund managers cannot invest in the Brisbane-based COVID-19 home
testing manufacturer until
it goes public in a much speculated float.
It is one of
the companies in the SGH Medical Technology Fund, which can invest in almost
the entire spectrum of medical innovators, co-managed by SG Hiscock portfolio
manager Rory Hunter.
Most
investors follow a traditional route into the industry, earning a degree in
finance or economics before joining a buy-side shop as a junior analyst or
trader. Others might spend some time on the sell-side first.
The UK-born
Hunter embraced the path of experience over traditional education. After
finishing high school, he got an internship at an investment manager, working
on the sales side, bringing in clients and clipping the ticket.
“I loved
making the money and really wanted to stay in the industry,” he recalls. At the
end of the internship, he was offered a full-time role.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/revealed-the-160mplus-post-pandemic-windfall-set-to-hit-pathology-players-including-sonic-healius-integral/news-story/fb9eed7d45059a85bad2bef9a4ae62c8
Revealed: the $160m-plus post pandemic windfall set to hit pathology
players including Sonic, Healius, Integral
Jared Lynch
2:46PM
January 18, 2022
Covid-19 is
set to inject $160m-plus a year into the coffers of Australia’s biggest
pathology companies when the pandemic subsides and the virus becomes akin to
the flu, analysts predict.
Taxpayer-funded
Covid-19 tests have delivered a bonanza to listed pathology companies – such as
Sonic Healthcare, Healius, Australian Clinical Labs and Integral Diagnostics –
fuelling record earnings and generating billions of dollars in revenue.
But the
companies have buckled under the soaring number of infections from the Omicron
wave, opening the door for the widespread take-up of rapid antigen tests, which
are limiting future revenue gains. Still, Royal Bank of Canada analyst Craig
Wong-Pan expects Covid-19 will continue to be lucrative for Australia’s
diagnostics sector.
“Our base
case scenario is for long-run Covid PCR testing revenues in Australia to be
about $164m, which is about 20 per cent of the level in FY21,” Mr Wong-Pan
said.
“This
estimate is based on the size of Medicare-funded influenza tests in FY19,
assuming the private Covid market is roughly the same size as the publicly
funded market and then including a small increase for higher prices and growth.
-----
International Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/pacific/tonga-volcano-triggers-tsunami-warning-20220115-p59oir
‘Humbling, scary’ eruption triggers Pacific-wide alert
Nick Perry
Updated Jan
16, 2022 – 4.41pm, first published at 12.02am
Wellington |
A massive undersea volcanic eruption set off tsunami warnings across the
Pacific from Australia to the United States and cut off the island nation of
Tonga after sending villagers fleeing to higher ground.
Beaches were
closed along Australia’s east coast early Sunday in case waves caused by the
eruption crashed ashore, though the threat had eased by later in the afternoon.
Satellite images
showed the spectacular eruption that took place Saturday evening, with a plume
of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters. A
sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.
In Tonga, it
sent tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher
ground.
The eruption
cut the internet to Tonga, leaving friends and family members around the world
anxiously trying to get in touch to figure out if there were any injuries and
the extent of the damage. Even government websites and other official sources
remained without updates on Sunday afternoon.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/cracks-appear-in-the-trump-charade-20220116-p59ome
Cracks appear in Trump’s charade
Jill Colvin
Jan 16, 2022
– 5.11pm
Washington |
Donald Trump stepped up his election-year effort to dominate the US Republican
Party with a rally in Arizona on Saturday where he castigated anyone who dared
to question his lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
But more than
3000 kilometres to the east in Washington, there are small signs that some
Republicans are tiring of the charade.
Mike Rounds,
the generally unassuming senator from South Dakota, was perhaps the boldest in
acknowledging the reality that the election was, in fact, fair. Instead of
being shunned, he was supported by his GOP colleagues, including Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Mr Rounds later said the party needed to get
“louder” in telling voters the truth about the 2020 campaign.
Meanwhile,
top Republicans in Washington have engaged in a behind-the-scenes effort to
encourage Maryland governor Larry Hogan, one of Trump’s most vocal antagonists
in the party, to run for a Senate seat. And Glenn Youngkin on Saturday became
the first Republican since 2010 to be sworn in as Virginia’s governor after
running a campaign that kept Trump at arm’s length.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/brazen-putin-tests-divided-west-over-ukraine/news-story/300e93caf6ecb41502442ba3aba9609a
Brazen Putin tests divided West over Ukraine
Paul Dibb
11:00PM
January 16, 2022
Vladimir
Putin’s talks with Joe Biden, followed by Russian diplomatic discussions with
the US, NATO and the Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe in
Europe last week, have produced no progress whatsoever on Russia’s demands for
the exclusion of Ukraine from NATO membership.
The
Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, states there is now “a real risk
for a new armed conflict in Europe” and the US National Security Adviser, Jake
Sullivan, says “the threat of a military invasion (of Ukraine) is high”.
Poland’s
Foreign Minister claims the risk of war in Europe is greater than ever in the
last 30 years. Russian officials are now suggesting Putin will soon be
considering military options.
Russia’s
demands are for a long-term binding guarantee that Ukraine would never join
NATO, as well as formal assurance from the West to cease military co-operation
with Ukraine. Stoltenberg has indicated these demands are core NATO interests
that cannot be negotiated. Both the US and NATO have repeatedly ruled out
allowing any other country to veto who can and who cannot be in the alliance.
So, relations between the West and Russia are now at a very dangerous impasse.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/year-of-the-tiger-shapes-as-crucial-one-for-china-20220116-p59olp
Year of the Tiger shapes as crucial one for China
Grant Wilson Contributor
Jan 17, 2022
– 5.00am
China has a
momentous year ahead, book-ended by the Winter Olympics and the 20th National
Party Congress.
In all
likelihood, President Xi Jinping will emerge with a historic third term, with the
formal groundwork having been laid in November, at the 6th plenum of the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
For
reference, from 1982, China’s constitution had stipulated that the President
could not serve more than two consecutive terms.
The 19th
National Party Congress in 2017, did away with that. Of the delegates at
Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, 2964 voted in favour, two voted against,
and three abstained.
The session
also constitutionally enshrined Xi’s 14-point “Thought on Socialism with
Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”. This was introduced into the national
curriculum in the third quarter of last year, amid the crackdown on
private-sector education providers.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-growth-ahead-of-forecasts-but-economy-still-slowing-20220117-p59otq
China growth for 2021 ahead of forecasts, but economy still slowing
Michael Smith North Asia
correspondent
Updated Jan
17, 2022 – 3.22pm, first published at 1.13pm
Tokyo |
China’s economy grew more than expected last year but a spate of COVID-19
outbreaks and a downturn in the debt-laden property sector weighed on growth in
the fourth quarter ahead of a challenging year for Australia’s biggest trading
partner.
The release
of China’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) figures on Monday coincided with
a surprise interest rate cut by the country’s central bank, emphasising
the government’s mantra to maintain stability in the lead up to the Winter
Olympics.
China’s GDP
growth slowed to 4 per cent year-on-year in the final quarter of the year but
was better than analysts’ consensus forecasts of 3.6 per cent.
On an annual
basis, GDP rose 8.1 per cent in 2021 which was slightly above expectations of 8
per cent.
However, some
economists said the strong growth was too good to be true and was inconsistent
with official monthly data, which pointed to slower quarter-on-quarter growth
than earlier in the year.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/inflation-heralds-regime-change-in-the-world-economy-20220116-p59ond
Inflation heralds regime change in the world economy
The end of a
40-year-long abundance of labour will bring shock and change to the way that
the way that global business and economics work.
Michael Spence
Contributor
Jan 17, 2022
– 2.23pm
In 1979, W.
Arthur Lewis received the Nobel prize in economics
for his analysis of growth dynamics in developing countries. Deservedly so: his
conceptual framework has proved invaluable in understanding and guiding
structural change across a range of emerging economies.
The basic
idea that Lewis emphasised is that developing countries initially grow by
expanding their export sectors, which absorb the surplus labour in traditional
sectors such as agriculture. As incomes and purchasing power rise, domestic
sectors expand along with the tradable sectors.
Productivity
and incomes in the largely urban, labour-intensive manufacturing sectors tend
to be three to four times higher than in the traditional sectors, so average
incomes rise as more people go to work in the expanding export sector.
But, as Lewis
noted, this also means that wage growth in the export sector will remain
depressed as long as there is surplus labour elsewhere.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/why-russia-might-appeal-to-dividend-hunters-20220117-p59ou6
Why Russia might appeal to dividend hunters
Investors
targeting dividend yield in some of the biggest Russian companies will find
their interests may be aligned with those of Vladimir Putin and his finance
ministry.
John Dizard Contributor
Jan 17, 2022
– 2.03pm
Every news
consumer in the Western world can now be an expert on the Ukrainian
front. The daily Russian order of battle, unit names, logistical issues,
whether the ground is frozen deeply enough for heavy armour – it is all there
online for the amateur analyst. We even know Russian strategic and tactical
intentions thanks to psychologists and Washington think-tank experts.
But what if
there is no war? For investors with a high-risk appetite that are willing to
overlook geopolitical tensions and concerns over the way Moscow governs, the
research might be better deployed on deep-value Russian equities.
One outcome
of the Kremlin’s economic and social control over its big companies is high
dividend payouts. Since 2016, it has been Russian state policy to force key
companies to pay out at least half of their profits in dividends.
This has
proved helpful in raising the cash to meet pension and military-industrial
development costs. For investors, that means there are quite a few deep-value
Russian equities with high dividend yield. According to Renaissance Capital,
the consensus forecast for the dividend yield on MSCI Russia Index companies
over the next 12 months is currently at 11 per cent. That is the largest such
estimated yield among all countries in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/russia-s-threats-go-far-beyond-ukraine-20220117-p59os2
Russia’s threats go far beyond Ukraine
Any
attempt to place weapons close to US cities could create conditions similar to
the 1962 crisis that was the closest the world came to a nuclear exchange.
Anton
Troianovski and David E. Sanger
Jan 17, 2022
– 11.59am
No one
expected much progress from this past week’s diplomatic marathon to defuse the
security crisis that Russia has ignited in eastern Europe by surrounding
Ukraine on three sides with 100,000 troops and then, by the White House’s
accounting, sending in saboteurs to create a pretext for invasion.
But as the
Biden administration and NATO conduct tabletop simulations about how the next
few months could unfold, they are increasingly wary of another set of options
for President Vladimir Putin, steps that are more far-reaching
than simply rolling his troops and armour over Ukraine’s border.
Putin wants
to extend Russia’s sphere of influence to eastern Europe and secure written
commitments that NATO will never again enlarge. If he is frustrated in reaching
that goal, some of his aides suggested on the sidelines of the negotiations
last week, then he would pursue Russia’s security interests with results that
would be felt acutely in Europe and the United States.
There were
hints, never quite spelled out, that nuclear weapons could be shifted to places
– perhaps not far from the US coastline – that would reduce warning times after
a launch to as little as five minutes, potentially igniting a confrontation
with echoes of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
-----
https://www.economist.com/europe/what-are-russias-military-options-in-ukraine/21807240
The guns of January
As war looms
larger, what are Russia’s military options in Ukraine?
The
Kremlin’s aim would probably be to shatter Ukrainian military power and dictate
terms
Jan 17th 2022
VISBY, A PORT
on the Swedish island of Gotland, was patrolled by soldiers on foot—and one
dog—on the morning of January 14th, noted Aftonbladet, a Swedish newspaper.
Then, shortly after lunch, a dozen armoured vehicles “thundered into the
harbour on rattling caterpillar tracks”. The same day a transport plane landed
with 100 troops. “An attack against Sweden cannot be ruled out,” warned Peter
Hultqvist, Sweden’s defence minister, on January 15th, pointing out that
Russian landing ships had entered the Baltic Sea. “Sweden will not be caught
napping if something happens.”
Sweden’s
decision to fortify the Baltic island, which lies close to Russia’s European
exclave of Kaliningrad, reflects wider fears that war is looming. Russia has
gathered over 100,000
troops near Ukraine’s borders, with more streaming in from the far east,
and declared that talks
with America and NATO held last week were a bust. It has also started
training and mobilising reserve forces.
Digital
skirmishing seems to have begun already. On the same day that Sweden rushed
forces into Gotland, Ukraine was hit by cyber-attacks which defaced government
websites, and may have locked some official computers. The White House claimed
it had intelligence showing that Russia was planning staged acts of sabotage
against its own proxy forces in eastern Ukraine to provide a pretext for
attacking the country.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/joe-biden-s-economic-management-has-been-a-secret-triumph-20220117-p59ovk
Joe Biden’s economic management has been a secret triumph
Putting
full employment first will have been worth the trouble of a couple of years of
elevated inflation.
Paul Krugman Contributor
Jan 17, 2022
– 3.40pm
All the
reporting in the US these days is about rising prices. And I get that: A 7 per cent surge in
the consumer price index over the past year comes as a shock, especially
because so many people, myself included, didn’t see it coming.
But there’s
another story that should be getting more attention: America’s extraordinary
success in limiting the damage from a horrifying pandemic. In fact, there’s a
good chance that in retrospect we’ll view economic management over the past two
years as a policy triumph, despite the inflation spike.
Early in the
pandemic many observers feared that we were about to experience a replay of the
2008 financial crisis, only worse. There were, in fact, a couple of weeks in
March 2020 when the financial system teetered on collapse. But the Federal
Reserve pulled us back from the brink.
Even as the
financial crisis receded, however, there were widespread fears that recovery
from the pandemic recession, like recovery from the Great Recession, would be
sluggish. Economic forecasters surveyed in the spring of 2020 expected the
average unemployment rate in 2022 to be above 6 per cent. In fact, it’s already
down to 3.9 per cent, only slightly higher than before the coronavirus struck.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/don-t-raise-interest-rates-china-s-xi-tells-the-west-20220118-p59p05
Don’t raise interest rates, China’s Xi tells the West
Hans van Leeuwen
Europe correspondent
Jan 18, 2022
– 2.36am
London |
Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged Western countries not to raise interest
rates, warning that “slamming on the brakes” could “challenge global economic
and financial stability”.
His
unprecedented intervention in global monetary policy comes a day after China’s
central bank went the opposite way, slashing interest rates
on several forms of short-term borrowing as Beijing battles against a property
crunch and an
omicron-related economic slowdown.
Mr Xi called
for stronger international co-ordination on fiscal and monetary policy - at a
time when policies in the West and China are pulling in different directions -
saying “major economies should see the world as one community”.
In a speech
late on Monday (AEDT) to a week-long “virtual Davos” organised by the
Switzerland-based World Economic Forum, Mr Xi also spelt out Beijing’s
preference for trickle-down economics, and vowed to “continue to let the market
play a decisive role in resource allocation”.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/sweden-rolls-out-armour-on-baltic-island/news-story/a3a4e14b030805a95e087d461c29cadd
Sweden rolls out armour on Baltic island
AFP
5:39PM
January 17, 2022
In an unusual
move, Sweden has deployed armoured combat vehicles and armed soldiers to patrol
streets on the island of Gotland in response to increased “Russian activity”
in the region.
Some 10
armoured combat vehicles and dozens of armed personnel are patrolling the small
port town of Visby on the strategically located island.
The move came
after three Russian landing ships sailed into the Baltic Sea through the Great
Belt Strait in Denmark last week, amid increased tensions between Russia and
NATO.
“The armed
forces are taking the necessary measures to safeguard Sweden’s integrity and to
demonstrate our ability to protect Sweden and Swedish interests,” Defence
Minister Peter Hultqvist said.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/china-and-russia-test-the-limits-of-eu-power-20220118-p59p7z
China and Russia test the limits of EU power
If China
successfully bullies Lithuania while the EU watches impotently from the
sidelines, that lesson will be noted — not just in Beijing, but in Moscow and
Washington, too.
Gideon Rachman
Columnist
Jan 18, 2022
– 4.29pm
Are Europeans
doomed to spend the 21st century being pushed around by outside powers?
In Brussels,
they like to argue that the collective power of the EU is the only way of
saving the old continent from that ignominious fate. Although no single
European country can stand toe-to-toe with America or China, the EU
collectively ranks as one of the world’s three largest economies.
But the idea
that the EU’s economic weight can be easily converted into geopolitical power
is undergoing a brutal reality check. The Ukraine
crisis has seen the EU sidelined. Meanwhile, China has imposed unofficial
economic sanctions on
Lithuania, an EU member – and Brussels is struggling to find an appropriate
response.
If things go
badly for the EU over the coming weeks and months, talk of a “geopolitical”
Europe will sound increasingly ridiculous. But it is also possible that the
current crises – in particular the Lithuanian challenge – will lead to a leap
forward in the EU’s ability to defend its interests in the global arena.
The crisis
over Ukraine is a matter of war and peace on the European continent, so some EU
officials feel humiliated that they did not take part directly in recent
negotiations.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/xi-s-rightly-wary-of-fed-tightening-20220117-p59oya
Xi’s rightly wary of Fed tightening
Stephen Kirchner Contributor
Jan 18, 2022
– 4.06pm
Chinese
President Xi Jinping’s remarks to the World Economic Forum cautioning
against a tightening in monetary policy on the part of major developed economies
highlights the fragility of the Chinese economy. Xi is right to be particularly
concerned about the potential for negative international spillovers from a
prospective tightening in United States monetary policy.
China’s
economy expanded 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter last year and 4 per cent
over the year, the slowest growth pace in 18 months. This was a little better
than expected, but only served to fuel long-standing suspicions the official
growth data has been smoothed.
Economists
at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco have developed a China
Cyclical Activity Tracker (China CAT) as a cross-check on the official GDP
figures using indices of economic activity –such as electricity, rail shipments
and industrial production –that are less amenable to official window-dressing
than China’s national accounts.
For
the third quarter of last year, the China CAT points to annualised growth of minus
5 per cent, well below the still barely positive official growth figure. This
would be only the second time the Chinese economy has seen a contraction since
2000.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/chinas-stimulus-push-skating-on-thin-ice/news-story/e026562ead8639efd680ab0234cf0230
China’s stimulus push skating on thin ice
By The
Economist
9:11PM
January 18, 2022
China has not
enjoyed much success at the sport of curling, which will feature in the Beijing
Winter Olympics beginning on February 4. But China’s economic policymakers
could draw inspiration from the obscure event.
Like curlers,
they have a difficult target to hit: they are thought to be aiming for growth
of 5 per cent or more in 2022. And just as the curlers must slide a “stone” (a
kind of oversized puck) with enough force to reach the target, but not so much
that it crashes off the ice, so China’s policymakers must give a slowing
economy enough oomph to grow by 5 per cent, but not so much that it exceeds its
limits, contributing to inflation and speculation.
Policymakers
are grappling with the impact of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which was
reported in Beijing for the first time on January 15th.
Unlike other
countries, China has no intention to “live with” the virus, even if its latest
iteration is less severe than earlier ones. A wide-ranging lockdown was imposed
on the city of Xi’an in central China after its officials failed to contain a
Covid outbreak quickly enough. Narrower lockdowns elsewhere have so far left
China’s manufacturing supply-chain largely intact.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/antony-blinken-in-last-ditch-effort-to-prevent-russiaukraine-war/news-story/120bbed003062e04c771b6458fc7895a
Antony Blinken in last ditch effort to prevent Russia-Ukraine war
Adam Creighton
3:41AM
January 19, 2022
The US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Europe to stare down Russia’s
foreign minister in a last-ditch effort to avoid war between Russia and
Ukraine, after a week of failed negotiations.
In a snap
three day trip to “find a diplomatic off ramp”, Mr Blinken will visit Kiev to
update Ukraine’s president Zelensky on US negotiations with Russia, before
meeting the German government in Berlin on Thursday, ahead of a one-on-one with
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign Minister in Geneva on Friday.
“We are now
at stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine,” a senior
state department told reporters on Tuesday in Washington, adding that the US
was in the midst of “preparing for a possible invasion”.
“Putin
created this crisis by amassing 100,000 troops on the border, this includes
moving forces into Belarus over the weekend, these are neither exercises nor
normal troop movements … this is extremely dangerous,” she said.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/how-the-pandemic-exposed-the-myth-of-the-anglosphere-20220119-p59pg8
How the pandemic exposed the myth of the Anglosphere
The US has
behaved too differently to be classed as part of an English-speaking club.
Janan Ganesh Contributor
Jan 19, 2022
– 12.22pm
Yes, he might
lose his job, US-resident Brits are having to explain to neighbours, friends
and Uber drivers. Yes, the prime minister of the actual United Kingdom. Yes,
over some office parties of less than Caligula-grade decadence.
The
bemusement of our hosts is not evidence of their slacker ethical standards.
Rather, the problem is that Americans tend to underrate how harsh the UK’s
lockdown was for much of 2020 – and how correspondingly provocative Boris Johnson’s breaches
of it are.
In turn, both
countries struggle to believe the severity of the restrictions under which
Australians have lived. A bid for “COVID-19 zero” made the place all but
unvisitable at times, even for passport-holding expats. Melbourne had no fewer
than six lockdowns.
Unable to
renew his near-monopoly on that city’s grand slam tennis tournament, Novak
Djokovic can attest to the strength of feeling there.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/the-world-s-disconnect-could-lead-to-economic-trouble-20220119-p59pck.html
Great disconnect: The world may not be ready for looming economic trouble
By Mohamed A.
El-Erian
January 20,
2022 — 5.00am
There is
little doubt that advanced countries in the first half of 2022 will pull back,
albeit partially, on the ultra-stimulative monetary policies they have pursued for
several years.
What is more
consequential, yet less certain, is when and how this will lead to a meaningful
tightening of financial conditions and what the spillover effects will be for
the global economy. These issues are of interest not only to policy makers
around the world but to businesses, households and investors as well.
Already,
expectations have changed drastically for US monetary policy.
Less than two
months after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “retired” the “transitory”
characterisation of inflation, consensus for this year has shifted to include
the end of large-scale asset purchases, at least three interest rate increases
starting in March and the initiation of shrinking the central bank’s balance
sheet.
This change
has come in the context of high and persistent inflation, including a 7 per
cent reading for the US consumer price index for December, and what some, such
as BlackRock’s Rick Rieder, call a “red hot” labour market.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/defence-ties-vital-to-counter-china-truss/news-story/b78943dd035f3d52e604c05e779c124c
Deeper defence ties vital to counter China’s influence, says Liz Truss
Ticky Fullerton
11:01PM
January 19, 2022
British
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says defence ties with Australia will continue to
deepen, with work on a mutual access defence agreement under way, as she warns
of a world of increased aggression and an unhealthy economic dependency on
China.
In an
interview with The Australian before a four-day visit to meet Foreign Minister
Marise Payne – and with her government in crisis over Prime Minister Boris
Johnson’s leadership – Ms Truss said trade and investment were at the core of
her thinking to build a “network of liberty”.
“I see
Australia absolutely crucial as part of this alliance in favour of freedom and
democracy. Australia has led the way” she said.
Ms Truss did
not rule out a shift in approach to the delivery of Australia’s submarines to a
more collaborative development by the three AUKUS parties rather than a choice
of Britain’s Astute-class or America’s Virginia-class.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/billionaire-investor-says-historic-sharemarket-crash-is-nearly-certain-20220121-p59q23.html
Billionaire investor says historic sharemarket crash is ‘nearly certain’
By Erik
Schatzker
January 21,
2022 — 6.45am
Jeremy
Grantham, the famed investor who for decades has been calling market bubbles,
said the historic collapse in stocks he predicted a year ago is underway and
even intervention by the Federal Reserve can’t prevent an eventual plunge of
almost 50 per cent.
In a note,
Grantham, the co-founder of Boston asset manager GMO, describes US stocks as
being in a “super bubble,” only the fourth of the past century. And just as
they did in the crash of 1929, the dot-com bust of 2000 and the financial
crisis of 2008, he’s certain this bubble will burst, sending indexes back to
statistical norms and possibly further.
That, he
said, involves the S&P 500 dropping some 45 per cent from Wednesday’s close
-- and 48 per cent from its January 4 peak -- to a level of 2500. The Nasdaq
Composite, already down 8.3 per cent this month, may sustain an even bigger
correction.
“I wasn’t
quite as certain about this bubble a year ago as I had been about the tech
bubble of 2000, or as I had been in Japan, or as I had been in the housing
bubble of 2007,” Grantham said in a Bloomberg “Front Row” interview. “I felt
highly likely, but perhaps not nearly certain. Today, I feel it is just about
nearly certain.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/us-stocks-decline-as-traders-eye-risks-bitcoin-sinks-20220122-p59qbi
Tech leads slide on Wall Street; bitcoin sinks
Vildana
Hajric and Emily Graffeo
Jan 22, 2022
– 5.00am
US stocks
fell, capping the worst week since the outbreak of the pandemic roiled markets,
with tech shares bearing the brunt of the sell-off amid shaky company earnings
and prospects for higher US interest rates.
The S&P
500 closed below its 200-day moving average, a key technical level, for the
first time since 2020.
·
On Wall St: Dow -1.3% S&P 500 -1.9% Nasdaq
-2.7%
·
In New York: BHP -4.5% Rio -2.4% Atlassian -2.9%
·
Tesla -5.3% NYSE Fang -5.3% Amazon -6% Netflix
-21.8%
·
Apple -1.3% Meta -4.2% Microsoft -1.9% Alphabet
-2.6%
·
In Europe: Stoxx 50 -1.6% FTSE -1.2% CAC -1.8%
DAX -1.9%
The
tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slid the most among major benchmarks Friday, led by a
more than 20 per cent plunge in shares of streaming giant Netflix.
Bitcoin
tumbled in an extended selloff for cryptocurrencies, briefly falling below
$US38,000 to its lowest level in more than five months; it was down 9.7 per
cent to $US38,013.02 near 8.30am AEDT on bitstamp.net.
Volatility
that has gripped markets this month showed little sign of letting up Friday,
with the S&P 500 falling for a fourth day, extending losses in the period
to 5.7 per cent for the worst, albeit shortened, week since March 2020. Option
expirations of more than $US3 trillion helped add to market turbulence.
ASX futures
fell 49 points or 0.7 per cent to 7006; the
S&P/ASX 200 shed 167 points or 2.3 per cent on Friday.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/jeremy-grantham-doubles-down-on-crash-call-20220121-p59q2g
‘Nearly certain’: Jeremy Grantham calls ‘super bubble’ in stocks
Erik
Schatzker
Updated Jan
21, 2022 – 7.47am, first published at 6.59am
Jeremy
Grantham, the famed investor who for decades has been calling market bubbles,
said the historic collapse in stocks he predicted a year ago is under way and
even intervention by the Federal Reserve cannot prevent an eventual plunge of
almost 50 per cent.
In a note
posted on Thursday (Friday AEDT), Grantham, the co-founder of Boston asset
manager GMO, describes US stocks as being in a “super bubble”, only the fourth
of the past century.
And just as
they did in the crash of 1929, the dotcom bust of 2000 and the financial crisis
of 2008, he is certain this bubble will burst, sending indexes back to
statistical norms and possibly further.
That, he
said, involves the S&P 500 dropping some 45 per cent from Wednesday’s close
– and 48 per cent from its January 4 peak – to a level of 2500. The Nasdaq
Composite, already down 8.3 per cent this month, may sustain an even bigger
correction.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-uk-step-up-military-co-operation-amid-china-risk-20220121-p59q5w
Australia, UK step up military co-operation amid China risk
Andrew Tillett
Political correspondent
Jan 21, 2022
– 5.23pm
Australia
will host more visits from British troops, warships and submarines as part of a
stand against “malign authoritarianism”, following top-level diplomatic and
defence talks between the two countries.
But a more
semi-permanent basing of British forces in Australia is off the immediate
agenda, despite suggestions a UK nuclear-powered submarine could make Perth’s
submarine base its home port, as a stepping stone to Australia gaining access
to the technology under the AUKUS agreement.
Defence
Minister Peter Dutton, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, UK Foreign Secretary Liz
Truss and UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace following AUKMIN talks. Rhett
Wyman
Following
Friday’s AUKMIN talks, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Britain and
Australia stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the defence of freedom and democracy
against multiple aggressors.
“The reality
is that threats are rising across the world,” Ms Truss said at a joint press
conference with Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Defence Minister Peter Dutton
and UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-common-prosperity-agenda-shows-every-sign-of-backfiring-20220119-p59pcx.html
China’s ‘common prosperity’ agenda shows every sign of backfiring
By Jeremy
Warner
January 21,
2022 — 5.00am
China, land
of perpetual growth and boundless opportunity, forging its way to a glorious
future of global hegemony and unchallenged economic prowess under the inspired
and benevolent leadership of the all-powerful President Xi Jinping.
The West’s
political leaders may all be at a befuddled loss over how to deal with an ever
more assertive China, but our major corporations and financial institutions
cannot get enough of it. However grovelling the kowtow required, if it secures
a foothold in Chinese markets, it’s judged worth the humiliation.
Time for a
reality check. This may come as a surprise, but China was the world’s
second-worst performing stock market last year, ranking 58th out of 59, only
marginally ahead of Pakistan - this despite seeming to have had a far better
pandemic than virtually all Western counterparts.
The long-term
picture scarcely looks any better. Over the past 30 years, Chinese stock
markets as measured by the MSCI China Index have delivered a paltry 1.76 per
cent annualised rate of return, compared to 7.47 per cent for emerging markets
as a whole and 10.72 per cent for the US S&P 500.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/aggressors-working-together-uk-s-truss-warns-china-could-follow-russia-into-war-20220121-p59q8p.html
Aggressors working together: UK’s Truss warns China could follow Russia
into war
By Peter Hartcher
January 22,
2022 — 5.00am
China could
use a Russian invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to launch aggression of its
own in the Indo-Pacific, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned.
“I don’t
think we can rule that out,” Ms Truss said during an interview with The Sydney
Morning Herald and The Age.
“Russia is
working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in
concert and I think it’s incumbent on countries like ours to work together.”
Ms Truss, who
is in Sydney for talks with her Australian counterpart Marise Payne, is cited
as a leading contender for Britain’s prime ministership in the event
scandal-plagued Boris Johnson is forced out in a leadership spill.
She told
reporters at Admiralty House that Mr Johnson had her “100 per cent support” and
stressed he was doing “a fantastic job”.
American
foreign policy analyst Hal Brands wrote this week “the most glaring danger” was that the US
could have to fight wars against China and Russia simultaneously. “This would
indeed be a nightmare scenario for a one-war military,” he concluded.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/many-dead-or-missing-as-horrific-air-strike-destroys-yemen-jail/news-story/30aec82ecf40c6700a0b04185165e120
Air strike on Yemen prison leaves at least 70 dead
AFP
January 22,
2022
At least 70
people were killed in an air strike on a prison as Yemen's long-running
conflict suffered a dramatic escalation Friday that drew condemnation from UN
chief Antonio Guterres.
The Huthi
rebels released gruesome video footage showing bodies in the rubble and mangled
corpses from the attack, which levelled buildings at the prison in their
northern heartland of Saada.
"The
children were reportedly playing on a nearby football field when missiles
struck," Save the Children said.
They said the
prison in Saada was used as a holding centre for migrants, who made up many of
the casualties.
-----
I look
forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
to
provide further information about TEFCA (the first of which will be on January
18 at 12:00 ET). This will help entities interested in participating in or
leveraging the benefits of TEFCA fully understand how it works and help
prospective QHINs decide whether they should sign the Common Agreement.
Following an application and review process, entities that have signed may be
designated QHINs. It is anticipated the initial QHINs will onboard to the
network-of-networks to begin sharing data with one another this year.
