The Australian dollar had an up-and-down day on the back of the Reserve Bank of Australia's move to keep interest rates on hold.
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00:00Well, the market odds of a rate cut today were not zero yesterday, but 18 per cent.
00:07So a few punters were tearing up their betting slips this afternoon and buying dollars.
00:11However, the Aussie fell because the words around today's inaction raised the odds of
00:17a cut in May.
00:18Also, the ABS reported retail sales for February this morning came in slightly below expectations.
00:24For the year to February, retail trade rose 3.6 per cent.
00:28But what this graph tells you is that it's entirely due to rising prices and population.
00:33We're each buying no more stuff than we were five years ago.
00:37As for house prices, that fall of half a per cent between October and January is now history.
00:42The national median is back at a new record high.
00:46So in the matter of improving housing affordability, that was it.
00:51As a multiple of average weekly earnings, the national median house price is not quite
00:55back to the 2022 record high of 14.6 times because wages have been rising.
01:01But it's not far off, 14.2, well over double the average of the whole 20th century.
01:08The US share market recovered a bit last night, but investors are cats on a hot tin roof awaiting
01:13Donald Trump's big tariff reveal tomorrow.
01:16US CEO confidence has suffered its second biggest fall in history, second to the GFC.
01:21And as you can see from the chart, the emotions of American bosses tend to be correlated with
01:27national GDP.
01:28The local market popped up nearly 1 per cent, with the big miners and banks attracting buyers.
01:33And gold has gone above $5,000 Australian for the first time ever, with safe havens
01:39looking more appealing every day.
01:41Also, oil jumped 3.5 per cent after a thought bubbled out of President Trump that he might
01:46curtail shipments of Russian crude.
01:50And that's finance.