Aussie Firm, ASX Flat And A Discussion Of How Bad Housing Might Get

Originally published by AxiTrader h2 THE AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR/h2

The Aussie initially went with the kiwi (after the RBNZ dovish hold) but it’s recovered to 0.7432. I’ve done a number of presentations over the past couple of days on the outlook for the economy, housing, and consumer and I’ve come to the conclusion that like the RBNZ, the RBA won’t be raising rates in 2019 and maybe not in 2020 either.

For the moment though the Aussie is holding up because it hasn’t been hit by any fresh bearish news recently so the selling has abated. RBA governor Lowe has been very careful not to suggest rates will fall while also saying they won’t rise anytime soon, and of course the recent solid rally in iron ore and stabilisation in copper and other base metals has also helped.

That’s set up a slightly bullish bias for the Aussie.

But the reality is it’s still trading the range and unless or until that range breaks I’m not going to get too bullish. But if we do see 0.7460/80 give way we could see a run to, perhaps above, 76 cents.

Medium term, if you look at what I've written about the local economy below you'll get a sense I still see the Aussie lower in time regardless of the short term setup.

The wash up of the competing move in offshore markets is that after the ASX rose 15 points yesterday SPI traders for the second day in a row have prices flat to where they were yesterday afternoon.

Like the Aussie and so many markets local stocks are ranging.

Granted the physical ASX is up near 10-year highs still. But so far it’s been unable to get up and through those peak prices and with the offshore moves overnight a little downbeat it might be time for a down day. In SPI terms the price is actually higher on the day but price ended in the bottom third of the bar, so the bears won the day. But as I said its still in a range – 6,145/6,267. My sense is we test lower.

spoke on demographics and monetary policy yesterday./h2

On the first longer term topic, he was pretty upbeat noting Australia has taken in a large swathe of younger folk which means our average age of the population has stayed relatively low compared to other developed nations. That’s good news as it means these new Australians have a long period of productive life to give to the nation.

On the second topic, he said the most likely next move in rates is higher, but that he’s not persuaded by arguments it should be anytime soon.

Part of that is while the RBA is forecasting employment growth to help drive unemployment to 5% it's not really expecting the labour market to tighten enough to materially lift wages growth. So with house prices still falling and with demand for debt likewise dropping the headwinds consumers are feeling won’t abate anytime soon.

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That’s important.

As I highlighted in the Aussie dollar section above, I’m generally optimistic about the resilience of Australian consumers. I wonder, however, if my optimism - which is shared by the RBA - is misplaced. Changes are coming, as 30% of the stock of housing debt switches from interest only to principle and interest.

Indeed if you throw in APG223, which locks people into their current mortgages and prevents many folks from getting one, the reality is house price falls could continue longer than many expect.

Here's a chart of the relationship between demand for debt and house prices - pointing lower.

And here's one to challenge the notion that we don't need to worry about housing debt because most of it is held by wealthier, higher income, households. The correlation between luxury car sales and house prices is the wealth effect writ large. The collapse in luxury sales, which you should note started before the house price falls, suggests that the "wealthier" households are themselves feeling the pinch. They're the ones carrying the debt folks. The ones we are always told not to worry about.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

DATA:

We get machinery orders in Japan as well as Chinese PPI and CPI data. The ECB releases its economic bulletin, Canada releases housing data and then tonight besides jobless claims we get PPI data in the US.

Have a great day's trading.

Written By: Axi