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The Australian dollar has taken another hit after inflation completely evaporated in the March quarter, boosting chances of a Reserve Bank interest rate cut sooner rather than later. Annual inflation slowed to 1.3 per cent for the 12 months to March 31 after the consumer price index showed zero growth in the quarter, falling from 0.5 per cent in the previous three months and undershooting the weak 0.2 per cent expected by the market.
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The Reserve Bank is under more pressure to cut interest rates after inflation fell further below its target band. Core inflation —an average of the trimmed mean and weighted median measures and regarded as the RBA's preferred inflation measure — came in at 1.4 per cent over the year, the weakest reading since the series started in 2003.
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Online job ads posted their biggest monthly decline in six years last month, in a further sign that Australia's recent economic weakness is about to feed through to higher unemployment. The Australian Government's official job vacancy report — which analyses ads on Seek, Career One and Australian Job Search — showed advertised positions fell 1.5 per cent in March in trend terms.
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Consumer confidence has hit its highest point since December after last week's strong jobs data. The ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence index jumped by 3.6 per cent to 119.5 last week, well above its four-week average 115.7.
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A nickel mining project in Tasmania's west that promised to breathe new life into the Zeehan area and create hundreds of new jobs has stalled indefinitely, with the owners blaming a rates stoush with the local council.
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Troubled fund manager Blue Sky Alternative Investments has won emergency court orders stopping former senior staff and a $48 billion investment behemoth from accessing its corporate secrets after an alleged raid on its confidential computer systems. The Federal Court orders prohibit former Blue Sky Water Partners (BSWP) investment directors Michael Blakeney and Nick Waters as well as Patrick Hayden, a former director of Blue Sky’s US subsidiary, from using or accessing a slew of spreadsheets detailing company secrets including pricing, modelling and investment deals.
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The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies says a proposed crackdown on skilled migration visas will do nothing to ease a shortage of workers in some areas of the mining sector. The lobby group made the comments after the Labor Party announced plans to restrict temporary work visas to jobs where there was a genuine skills shortage as part of a pitch to voters ahead of next month’s Federal Election.
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WA Netball will be able to unearth new talent with $5 million from the State’s gold miners. Gold Industry Group vice-chairwoman Kelly Carter said the support over three years for WA’s biggest participant sport would help attract women into the gold industry where the labour market was tight.
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Delays at Northern Star's Alaskan operations have weighed on the gold miner's quarterly production, but the company says a record June quarter is now in the offing. While the company's Australian mines performed comfortably within guidance, its Alaskan operations sagged after the late delivery of a new underground mining fleet and the introduction of a new mining method.
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Mt Gibson Iron will crown itself as Australia’s highest grade exporter of hematite, with the first shipment of iron ore from its restarted Koolan Island mine off the Kimberley coast. The 72,000 wet metric tonne shipment, grading at 65 per cent iron, will set sail aboard the bulk carrier MV S’Hail Al Mafyar later today bound for China.
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CropLogic Ltd (ASX:CLI) has agreed terms to increase its industrial hemp trial farm in Central Oregon, US, from 150 to 500 acres to further vertically integrate its agronomy and agtech expertise. The increase in size will enable CropLogic’s wholly-owned subsidiary, LogicalCropping, to evaluate and produce reference data for different growing conditions such as soil types, land contours and elevation in order to optimise crop yields.
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Australia's biggest listed companies have been appointing fewer women to their boards so far in 2019. Women accounted for 29.7 per cent of ASX200 board positions at the end of last year, but the Australian Institute of Company Directors said Tuesday just 23 per cent of appointments in the subsequent three months were female.
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Analysis - Stephen Long: Inflation rate of zero not as good as it sounds. Wow. You don't often see a headline inflation number that reads 0.0 for the quarter. Zero. Nada. Nought. Zilch. Or an annual inflation rate of just 1.3 per cent.
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US new home sales surged in March, defying expectations, with all but one region of the country posting solid gains, the government reported Tuesday. Putting the sales pace at a 16-month high, the result marked the third consecutive monthly increase. Data for the prior three months were revised downward, however.
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White House economist sees no impact on oil prices from Iran sanctions. The decision to tighten sanctions on Iran will have "no material impact" on oil prices given the large US supply of petroleum, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said Tuesday. "We are a country awash with oil and gas," Kudlow said.
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AT&T missed revenue estimates as pay-TV subscribers bleed away
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Ford is investing $500 million in electric pickup truck maker Rivian, saying the two companies will work together to develop a new battery plug-in vehicle for Ford. Ford (F) is playing catch-up to a number of other automakers' efforts to develop electric vehicles. It does not currently sell any pure electric vehicles, although it sells some plug-in hybrid cars.
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Bayer AG on Wednesday asked a California appellate court to throw out a $78 million judgment it was ordered to pay to a school groundskeeper who claimed the company’s weed killers gave him cancer. In a filing in California’s Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, the company said that there was “no evidence” that glyphosate, a chemical found in the company’s Roundup and Ranger Pro products, could cause cancer.
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Boeing's profit falls 21% on the 737 Max crisis
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Wanted: A central banker with nerves of steel to deal with Brexit. The Bank of England is looking for a new boss, but applicants beware: The successful candidate will inherit an economy traumatized by Brexit. Three years of confusion over how, when and even if Britain will leave the European Union has hurt growth and caused the housing market to weaken, auto production to slump and investment to decline.
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Brexit Chaos Renews Scottish Drive for Independence Vote
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Huawei row: UK to let Chinese firm help build 5G network. The government has approved the supply of equipment by Chinese telecoms firm Huawei for the UK's new 5G data network despite warnings of a security risk. There is no formal confirmation but the Daily Telegraph says Huawei will build "non-core" components such as antennas.
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Has Asia’s middle class creation peaked? As hundreds of millions of Asians enjoy higher living standards in the move from lower to middle class, a warning of the trend’s sustainability came this month from Europe, where middle class expansion has stalled. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based club that includes most of the world’s wealthiest nations, reported that many of its member states have “seen their standard of living stagnate or decline, while higher income groups have continued to accumulate income and wealth.”
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Wall Street titans return to Saudi Arabia as new human rights storm erupts. Some of the biggest names in global finance appeared in Riyadh on Wednesday, hours after news that Saudi Arabia had executed 37 people turned the spotlight back on the kingdom's human rights record.
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Billions of dollars’ worth of gold is being smuggled out of Africa every year through the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East – a gateway to markets in Europe, the United States and beyond – a Reuters analysis has found. Customs data shows that the UAE imported $15.1 billion worth of gold from Africa in 2016, more than any other country and up from $1.3 billion in 2006. The total weight was 446 tonnes, in varying degrees of purity – up from 67 tonnes in 2006.
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