The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Monday, June 20, 2011

Auctions point to a freezing housing market (chart)

The chart below shows the latest auction data. While there is probably a bit of Winter seasonality dampening the results, the housing market is certainly rather lifeless right now. This is likely to be partly attributable to participants working on the basis that they were going to get hit with a spate of rate hikes this year, which has been consistently borne out in Westpac surveys of consumers (I will come to this later). Thus far, the RBA has not pulled the trigger with its rhetoric doing a lot of the heavy-lifting for it.

at 12:58 PM