Economics

Australian retail sales growth vanished when Taylor Swift flew out of Australia at the end of her seven-concert, two-week tour in February. March data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday showed retail turnover fell 0.4% in March after a 0.2% rise in February and a 1% jump in January (which followed a slide the previous December, despite it being Christmas).

As suspected by foreign economists, activity across the Chinese economy expanded in April, though at a slower rate than seen in March's rebound.

Origin Energy’s (ASX:ORG) best investment isn’t in Australia – it's the 23% stake in Britain's Octopus Energy, which is going from strength to strength. In fact, Octopus has just become Britain's largest domestic electricity supplier by customer numbers, after the company added 1.3 million accounts following its takeover of Shell Energy late last year. The performance was a standout bright spot for Origin in its March quarterly report out Tuesday.

Less than a week after revealing a near $US4 billion cash burn in the first three months of this year, embattled plane maker Boeing is raising $US10 billion in new debt.

Growing financial pressures from the loss of its huge Panamanian copper mine have led Canada’s First Quantum Minerals to decide to close its Ravensthorpe nickel mine in southwestern WA.

Chinese EV maker BYD posted higher profit in the three months to March despite the intensifying price war in China and a surge in investment in new technologies. The Warren Buffett-backed automaker's net profit rose 11% year-on-year to 4.57 billion yuan ($US630.7 million) in the first quarter, it announced Monday night.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the American economy was booming and consumer spending continued to be resilient.

Another week of solid gains for copper, with prices rising to two-year highs on Friday.

A Fed meeting, the April jobs data for the US, some more major profits led by Amazon and Apple, two major bank results in Australia, worldwide surveys of economic activity for last month — especially for China — and the continuing tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Another big week ahead of us for US earnings (and for Australia, with two big banks on the list to reveal their profits and dividends).

A mixed day for oil and oil stocks on Friday. While prices bounced a little on the day, they still lost ground for the week.

For all the volatility, angst about inflation, growth, geopolitical tensions and earnings, Wall Street ended very much on an up note on Friday, but will have to run the gauntlet once again this week.

Brazilian iron ore and base metal giant Vale saw net earnings slip 9% in the three months to March 31.

Boeing lost hundreds of millions of dollars and used up $US3.9 billion in cash in the March quarter. Revenue fell nearly 8% from a year ago as the company continues to struggle to overcome ongoing problems in its core business – commercial aircraft.

In the wake of the weaker-than-expected first estimate of US economic growth, it seems US interest rates aren’t going lower for a while longer—perhaps past November’s elections—unless there is a sudden slump in activity between now and then.

No rate rise is expected from the Reserve Bank for most of this year after inflation picked up in the three months to March 31, thanks to another surge in housing costs and the usual start-of-year jump in education-related charges.

Kogan.com (ASX:KGN) shares slumped 26% on Wednesday after it revealed a surprise 6% decline in gross sales to $178.3 million and a 2% drop in revenue to $105.9 million for the March quarter.

In stark contrast to Tesla’s poor performance, rival carmaker General Motors rode the back of its traditional ICE-powered cars (internal combustion engine) to better-than-forecast revenue and profits in the March quarter and gave a strong hint that it expects to start seeing profits from its EV business late this year.

The US first-quarter reporting season accelerates. Up to Friday, 14 companies in the S&P 500 had reported so far, and this week they will be joined by another 158 (or more than 30% of the index), as well as 11 of the 30 companies in the Dow.

As markets realized that Israel's retaliatory attack on Iran caused little damage, gold lost its early momentum but still managed to hang on to the small gain that left it closing above $US2,400 an ounce on Friday.

Iron ore prices eased on Friday but still ended the week with a small gain, marking a notable uptrend for April.

Like gold, oil ran up and then down as the news of the Israeli reply to Iran’s attack earlier in the week waxed and waned in terms of tensions.

One of those weeks (there are four of them) when the most accurate consumer price inflation data comes around—a sure generator of a lot of words, forecasts, and guesses.

Inflation dominates market thinking again this week, along with the first estimate of US March quarter economic growth. There are also events in the Middle East for investors to continue to worry about, while earnings interest turns to four of the Magnificent Seven – well, three, if you exclude a tanking Tesla.

The US first-quarter reporting season accelerates. Up to Friday, 14 companies in the S&P 500 had reported so far, and this week they will be joined by another 158 (or more than 30% of the index), as well as 11 of the 30 companies in the Dow.

Nasdaq suffered its sixth straight losing day on Friday, the longest downtrend in more than a year. Tech giants like Nvidia and the much-diminished Tesla slid.

Netflix created another fuss this week with its decision to abandon regular updates on subscriber numbers and revenue data, in what is looking more like an admission that it has reached what some analysts might call “Peak Netflix”.

BHP (ASX:BHP) increasingly loves copper, especially in South Australia, where it took a $9.6 billion punt in 2022-23 by purchasing OZ Minerals, a move that is now paying off in spades. Copper is pouring out of the company’s three mines in South Australia, led by Olympic Dam, arriving just in time to catch the recent rebound in prices to a 16-month high earlier this month of $US4.4385 a pound on Thursday. These are the highest copper prices since May 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.