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, March 5, 2012

UBS: ANZ Job Ads suggest unemployment rate has "peaked"

From UBS today:

ANZ job ads rebounded further in February, up by 3.3% m/m (UBS: +2%, mkt: nf), after lifting by an upwardly revised 7.5% m/m in January (was 6.0%) - to the highest since Nov 2008. This also sharply improved the y/y to 3.6%, from 2.2% in January and a soft -4.0% in December. This strong result was again flagged by our weekly internet job ads analysis. Internet ads remains the upward driver (3.8%, 4.9% y/y), while newspaper ads weakened further (-8.6%, -22.3% y/y). Job ads have clearly troughed, and now rebounded solidly from a noticeable downtrend since April 2011...Looking forward, the ANZ jobs data broadly suggests jobs growth should continue to recover relatively toward ~1 1/2 - 2% growth (the 3m/3m implies stronger growth than the y/y), which would imply the unemployment rate has broadly peaked - and hence the RBA is on hold.
at 2:18 PM