Data Diary

Australian equities have benefited from two major trends over the last couple of decades (casting aside the credit bubble on the grounds that it hurt).  They are 1) the growth in our compulsory superannuation investment pool and 2) the growth in China’s demand for all things resources.  It’s interesting then to compare and contrast the [...]

The RBA released its monthly commodity price index for May10 yesterday (you’ll find it here).  Perhaps surprisingly, the overall index was up. The fact that it continued to climb is partly a function of its composition (see here for a breakdown – note gold makes up a handy 9.5%) and partly the way it is [...]

It was a line in Niels Jensen’s article “The Commodities Con” (here) that got me thinking: Most commodities are in contango more often than not, effectively costing investors the spread between the nearby future and the more distant future every time the position is rolled. See in my day, commodities were in backwardation more often than not. [...]

After a couple of days ruminating on the new Resource Super Profits Tax (here and here), I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a deeply flawed structure.  It is simply too complex in the implementation.  Does the world really need another legion of tax accountants? The strange thing is that the same economic result [...]

The RBA published it’s commodity price index for April yesterday per the chart below (you can find the original release here): The index was up 15.1% for April in A$ terms – partially reflecting the contract wins that the miners had in iron ore (up 100% YOY), thermal coal (up 36-40%) and coking coal (up [...]

The Australian government has announced the Resource Super Profit Tax – it promises taxpayers equity participation in mining projects. But with our capital at risk, and being managed by the Australian Tax Office, this ‘world class’ reform is at risk of falling short in the implementation.

And here was I thinking that industrial production is ready to top out. The March reading of the US ISM manufacturing index just punched 59.6 (versus 56.5 in Feb and at the highest reading since last year’s dip – read it here); and, China’s PMI bounced to 55.1 in March (versus Feb of 52.0 – [...]

Following up on our note yesterday on the RBA Commodity Price index and the turning down of our pre-pubescent materials sector leading indicator comes a report on the China Purchasing Managers Index for February that was released late last week. But first to the PMI index (from Standard Chartered Daily Metals bulletin): China’s manufacturing index [...]

The RBA’s Commodity Price Index for January shows off just how diversified Australia’s old world exporting economy is: The index rose in A$ and SDR terms, while suffering from the stronger currency in US$ terms.  The drivers were stronger beef, veal, coal and iron ore prices while aluminium, copper and oil fell. Our work-in-progress index [...]

The commodities complex has taken on an interesting hue of late. The ASX200 Energy index has been fluffing around since its last high back in October last year. Technicals – While MACD, momentum and a broken uptrend all suggest lower prices to come, the slow stochastics have crossed on the turn – so we may [...]