Economic and market news
In Australian economic news this week, new data show that business turnover rose by 0.2 per cent in trend terms in May. However, nominal turnover remained flat in the month and fell 0.6 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms.
Alongside this, payroll jobs saw an increase of 0.1 per cent in the month to mid-June 2024, after a 0.4 per cent rise in the month to mid-May. This outturn was broadly in line with the same time last year.
In overseas news, new data show that inflation eased in the United States during June. The consumer price index dipped 0.1 per cent last month, and was unchanged in May. This means that the annual rate is now 3 per cent, the slowest rate in a year. Lower energy costs and a significant slowing in the rate of rent growth drove this unexpected decline in the overall reading.
Financial markets have now priced in an 84.6 per cent chance of a quarter point interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s September.
Australian indices
ASX 200: Rose 2.17 per cent over the week to close at 7999.3 points on Tuesday.
All Ordinaries: Rose 2.08 per cent in the period to close at 8243.3 points on Tuesday.
Government Bonds
Government Bond Yields (Source: Bloomberg)
|
NAME |
COUPON |
PRICE |
YIELD |
1 DAY |
1 MONTH |
1 YEAR |
|
GTAUD2Y:GOV Australia Bond 2 Year Yield |
4.25
|
100.28 |
4.08% |
-6 |
+18 |
+12 |
|
GTAUD5Y:GOV Australia Bond 5 Year Yield |
3.25 |
96.87 |
3.97% |
-7 |
+13 |
+10 |
|
GTAUD10Y:GOV Australia Bond 10 Year Yield |
3.75 |
96.01 |
4.25% |
-7 |
+13 |
+25 |
|
GTAUD15Y:GOV Australia Bond 15 Year Yield |
3.25 |
86.88 |
4.45% |
-7 |
+14 |
+24 |
Reserve Bank of Australia (Source:RBA)
|
RBA CASH RATE TARGET (RBATCTR:IND) CURRENT (per cent) |
MOST RECENT DECISION (percentage points) |
MOST RECENT CHANGE (percentage points) |
1 YEAR PRIOR (per cent) |
|
4.35 |
+0 (18 June 2024 ) |
+0.25 (7 November 2023) |
4.10 |
Currencies (source:RBA)
As at the close on 16 July the AUD/USD had fallen 0.09 per cent over the week, closing at 0.6738 on Tuesday. The AUD/RMB had also fallen, 0.18 per cent, in the period, closing at 4.8955 on Tuesday.
Venture Capital
BioScout
Stoic investee BioScout shared the progress being made by its SporeScout initiative. The deployment of 60 SporeScout units across Australia's principal wheat regions is setting new standards in agricultural disease management by delivering real-time, actionable data to farmers and scientific researchers. This will enhance the precision that farmers can have in tackling fungal diseases.
Exonate
Stoic investee Exonate was shortlisted for the Business Weekly Awards alongside other companies in the ‘Cambridge cluster’ pioneering research across life science tech.
Ferronova
The CEO of Stoic investee Ferronova, Stewart Bartlett, spoke to The Art of the Startup about its research and the journey to commercialisation of a nanoparticle tracer that will support better outcomes for oesophageal and gastric cancer sufferers.
Property
In property news this week, it was suggested that the winter school holidays were the cause of the drop in auction volumes to 1,478 homes, significantly down from the 1776 seen the week prior. Alongside this, auction clearance rates this week dropped to 71.0 per cent, from 74.7 per cent. However, this weakness camouflaged a strong outcome in Melbourne which saw the second highest clearance rate this year.
