5 Things that Grabbed my Attention
1. To give the economy a boost, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) cut it's key interest rate by 0.15% to 2.5%.
2. After the government blocked Qatar Airways from getting more flights to Australia, Qantas (QAN) is paying back the juicy favour by pushing Albo's YES campaign down our throats....I doubt it will work - most Aussies now want an AUDIT of the $30bn+ spend on Aboriginals per year rather than a referendum....And as a tax payer I want a big fat refund!
I will be gutted if Aussies hand over unlimited power to the professional grifters behind the VOICE....Imagine the pigs at the trough then.
3. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said oil demand hit a record 103 million barrels a day in June.
4. A bidding war has arrived for US Steel....Esmark has come in with a $7.8bn takeover price, trumping Cleveland Cliffs offer.
5. In a first, India paid for crude oil from the Arabs in Rupees and not USD....I doubt if this is sustainable though, as what are the Arabs going to do with all the Rupees that continue to lose purchasing power?
ASX Market Update
ASX 200 up 28 points to 7305
Seek.com (SEK) shares fell 5% after MISSING analyst expectations......Whilst it is an incredible business, I am not jumping in just yet - as nothing in their outlook gets me excited:
And check out this - GOVERNMENT volume up 13% while every other group is falling....I hate where this is heading - we already have a bloated bureaucracy that is squeezing the daylights out of us; at every single point we get taxed and then taxed some more, plus the endless regulation - when you own a small business, some days you feel like banging your head against the wall.....
Random Observation
This works out to about A$28 Trillion...The Chinese aren't saving for a rainy day, but rather a 100 year storm!
The Day Ahead
- Our SPI is down 75 points
- Bitcoin down 0.5% to $29,280
Movements affecting our resource stocks today (USD)
- BHP in the US down 2.04%
- Newmont down 2.5%
- Gold down 0.5% to $1933
- Paper Silver down 0.61% to $22.57
- Platinum down 1.7% to $891
- Copper down 1.7% to $3.66
- Brent Crude down 1.45% to $84.96
- Iron ore up 0.6% to $101.05
Asian Market Update
Japan up 0.56%, China FLAT, Hong Kong down 1.08%
The big SELL off in the YEN gave Japanese exports a boost, which translated to economic growth in the quarter of 1.5%. This number was way higher than what anyone was predicting. Internally, the Japanese economy seems to be struggling with private consumption down 0.5% over the last quarter.
