Not everything is going our way

Back in the saddle after two weeks in the United States where I couldn’t find anyone who liked Donald Trump but then again I was on the West Coast where a more liberal stance usually gets the votes.

So what’s been happening back in Australia while I was away . . . the answer seems to be not much apart from news that we might be heading for an early election.

The last quarter GDP number seemed to indicate Australia traveling a little better than most thought, which data news has been saying all year, but the general euphoria seems a little misplaced. Terms of trade should show some improvement as commodity prices stabilise at lower levels, but the $A is rising which is not good news for our exporters.

I still believe we’re on the right track but this year will be choppy as the housing boom winds down, more jobs are lost in resources and energy, and its hard to see where growth will come from for investors especially if the May Budget packs some hidden nasties.

SUPERANNUATION

Everyone seems assured that the Federal Government will curtail its generosity in relation to superannuation tax benefits, and this data from the Australian Financial Review shows why there is an increasing debate about the real purpose of Australia’s super schemes.

“Two thousand wealthy Australians have at least $20 million stashed in their superannuation accounts. Australian Tax Office figures show there are 990 people with self-managed super funds worth $10 million or more and 944 accounts in large pooled funds with $10 million plus.

Six accounts have balances of more than $100 million each.

EMPLOYMENT

In February full-time jobs rose by 15,900 while part-time jobs fell by 15,600. Economists had tipped a 13,500 increase in jobs. The unemployment rate fell back to under 6 per cent as the participation rate declined and while it’s good to see growth in the full-time area, employment seems to have stalled over the last three reporting months.

 INTEREST RATES

The jobs number led most observers to opine that RBA interest rate cuts were off the table for the moment, but my former colleague over at Market Economics, economist Stephen Koukoulas says he think banks will continue to lift rates out-of-circle and this will extend to mortgage rates. Another negative for housing.

PROPERTY

The property watchers over at CoreLogic RP Data were also reporting a continuing slowdown in the rental market. Its Rental Review recorded just 0.2 per cent growth in rents across the combined capital cities over January, but no growth at all over the past year.

EXPLORATION

Such is the dire straits of Australia exploration industry at the moment that accounting and advisory firm BDO’s latest quarterly cash analysis on the sector shows about 120 of the 753 listed exploration companies, or 16 per cent, did not actively explore during the December quarter. They are perserving cash for hopefully better times in the future. Further, there were 25 ASX-listed mineral exploration companies delisting, entering administration or switching their focus to another industry during the December quarter.

MEDIA

And lastly comes news that those media companies affected by the onslaught of ad-blocker software that stop ads from downloading on your internet page is creating some blowback.

Google is now working with major Australian publishers including Fairfax Media, News Corporation and Ninemsn to help combat the growing tide of consumers turning using this type of software.

But rather than acting to try and save revenue that eventually pays for all those news downlowds, and updates on your mobile devices, this broad coalition has actually targeted the advertisers themselves. What they’re saying is the data-rich ads are too slow to download and therefore creating a trigger for consumers to turn them off altogether.

According to Google it is working with publishers around the world on an open source project called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which aims to improve data use, loading times and create a more user-centric advertising model. The system does not allow pop-up advertisements and seeks to limit the download of data for what is needed on the page at a specific instance.

It needs to come quickly because media seems to be shrinking around the world.

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