Australian Dollar Appreciates As RBA Holds Rate, Lifts Growth Forecasts The Australian dollar spiked higher against its most major trading partners in the Asian session on Tuesday, after Australia’s central bank retained its benchmark interest rate at a historic low and lifted economic growth forecast led by the strong recovery in economic activity.
The policy board of the Reserve Bank of Australia headed by Governor Philip Lowe decided to leave its cash rate unchanged at a record low of 0.10 percent.
The central bank retained the target yield on the 3-year Australian government bond at around 0.1 percent and also maintained the parameters of the Term Funding Facility and the government bond purchase programme.
The number of Australian businesses adopting teleworking has increased despite restrictions around COVID-19 starting to ease into 2021, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed.
The ABS said 30 percent of employing Australian businesses reported that they had staff currently teleworking, up from 20 percent before the COVID-19 restrictions, but also down from 43 percent reported in September 2020. The data was collected between 14 April and 21 April 2021.
Of the businesses that had staff teleworking prior to COVID-19, 27 percent increased the proportion of staff teleworking and 33 percent increased the frequency of staff teleworking.
Businesses listed under “Information Media and Telecommunications” increased the proportion of staff teleworking by 14 percent and the frequency by 13 percent. For those that already had teleworking staff before COVID-19, the proportion increased 57 percent and frequency was up 54 percent.
Is the property market reaching its summit?
By Bianca Dabu
03 May 2021
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1 minute read
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While home values continued to rise across the country in April, current trends are pointing to the possibility that the property market has peaked, a new report has revealed.
CoreLogic’s latest Hedonic Home Value Index showed a 1.8 per cent increase in housing values across Australia as at 30 April 2021.
While it continues the growth run, it does ease the monthly pace of capital gains from the 32-year high recorded in March (2.8 per cent).
The report flagged that growth conditions over the past six months have become unsustainable and have led to a gradual slowdown in demand due to worsening affordability constraints, rising fresh inventory levels, higher levels of new detached housing supply and less government stimulus.
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at 2:16 pm on May 4, 2021 | 0 comments
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released international trade data for March, which revealed that Australia’s trade surplus retraced by $2.0 billion to $5.6 billion amid falling exports (-$681 million) and rising imports (+$1,340 million):
Nevertheless, Australia’s trade balance has been stuck firmly in surplus since 2019:
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Surging investor lending, which rose at its fastest pace in almost two decades, has pushed Australia’s booming residential market out of regulators’ comfort zone and made macroprudential controls more likely, economists said on Tuesday.
New data showing home loan commitments to investor buyers jumped 12.7 per cent from February, the fastest increase since July 2003, to a seasonally adjusted monthly total of $7.8 billion, were “enormous” numbers and challenged the picture of a market solely driven by owner-occupiers, JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy said.
An investor, rather than an owner-occupier buyer bought the 273sq m top-floor apartment in Fortis’ planned Colindia development in Neutral Bay for $6.5 million.