Mark Mulligan

Massive away win for the little fella.

Publishers in London are scratching their heads about why Jamie Oliver’s editors didn’t see this one coming afr.com/life-and-luxur…

right ths way...@FinancialReview

Why Europe’s rightward shift won’t faze Aussie business afr.com/world/europe/w…

What, no sausage sizzle? Five things about the UK election that would baffle Aussies afr.com/world/europe/f…

Angry, broken Britain set to push its PM off a cliff afr.com/world/europe/a…

full transparency.. @FinancialReview

Saturday read #3. A final curtain for Melanie who left more than rollerskates & chips of Woodstock. WindBackWednesday recalls a conversation that threw back the (mistaken) hippie curtain. "I was being tied to Brigitte Bardot not other songwriters.” bernardzuel.net/post/a-change-…

Time will show that the brand damage to @Qantas by their shabby treatment of loyal customers will prove irreparable. Look forward to reading this one. afr.com/companies/medi…

Who would have thought? Brexit has completely failed for UK, say clear majority of Britons – poll theguardian.com/politics/2023/…

Will COP28 fail after dropping fossil fuel pledge? afr.com/policy/energy-…

Thank you, Mick! Get your copy of The Sun Will Rise today! thesunwillrisebook.com

Seriously, what a clown show. If they’d got the majority they’d crowed about getting in the midterms, this wouldn’t be happening.

@izakaminska Yes, I too remember when journalists honestly believed that taxi drivers had their fingers on the pulse of any given nation.

Landed in Warsaw today, and the taxi driver was quick to point out "petrol prices" were rising as expected after the election. Apparently news of the Gaza-Israel conflict and its impact on oil prices and gasoline spreads hasn't hit Poland yet. Excellent example of correlation not causation. notesfrompoland.com/2023/10/19/pol…

In this Fact Check, we look at Israel’s changing narrative on the deadly bombing of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

“In emails and conversations after meeting with Trump, Pratt described Trump's remarks to at least 45 others, including six journalists, 11 of his company's employees, 10 Australian officials, and three former Australian prime ministers, the sources told ABC News. “While Pratt told investigators he couldn’t tell if what Trump said about U.S. submarines was real or just bluster, investigators nevertheless asked Pratt not to repeat the numbers that Trump allegedly told him, suggesting the information could be too sensitive to relay further, ABC News was told.”

More Rowe gold ….. funny ‘cause it’s true.

Me: “I’m concerned that if the India-Canada imbroglio continues to escalate, then we could see western nations begin to choose sides & it is likely to be Ottawa, placing New Delhi’s partnerships with countries like US, Australia, & UK in greater jeopardy." ft.com/content/aa4317…

I believe that long-term rates, e.g, 30-year rates, will rise further from here. As such, we remain short bonds through the ownership of swaptions. The world is a structurally different place than it was. The peace dividend is no more. The long-term deflationary effects of outsourcing production to China are no more. Workers and unions’ bargaining power continues to rise. Strikes abound, with more likely to come as successful walkouts achieve substantial wage gains. Energy prices are rising rapidly. Not refilling the SPR was a misguided and dangerous mistake. Our strategic assets should never be used to achieve short-term political objectives. Now we must refill the SPR while OPEC and Russia cut production. The green energy transition is and will remain incalculably expensive. And higher gas prices will raise inflationary expectations. Just ask your average American. They see the prices at the pump and in the grocery store and don’t believe inflation is moderating. Our national debt is $33 trillion and rising rapidly. There is no sign of fiscal discipline by either party or by the presumptive presidential nominees. And each debt ceiling is an opportunity for our divided government and its most extreme actors to get media attention, and for our nation to threaten default. This is not a good way to recruit the many new buyers we need for our bonds. The government is selling hundreds of billions of bills, notes and bonds weekly. China and other foreign nations, historically major buyers of our debt, are now selling. And the QT unwind experiment has barely begun. Imagine trying to do a massive IPO where the underwriter, insiders and short sellers are all selling at once, competing to hit every bid on the way down while the analysts downgrade their ratings to ‘Sell.’ Our economy is outperforming expectations. Major infrastructure spending is beginning to contribute to economic growth and the supply of additional debt. Recession predictions have been pushed out beyond 2024. The long-term inflation rate is not going back to 2% no matter how many times Chairman Powell reiterates it as his target. It was arbitrarily set at 2% after the financial crisis in a world very different from the one we live in now. I bumped into the CIO of one of the world’s largest fixed income asset managers the other night and asked him how it was going. He looked like he had had a tough day. He greeted me by saying: ‘There are just too many bonds’ — a veritable tsunami of new issuance each week. I asked him what he was going to do about it. He said: ‘The only thing you can do is step away.’ I have been surprised at how low long-term rates are. I think the best explanation is that bond investors thought of 4% as a high rate of interest because rates hadn’t breached 4% for nearly 15 years. When investors saw the ‘opportunity’ to lock in 4% for 30 years, they grabbed it as a ‘once-in-their-career opportunity,’ but today’s world is very different from the one they have experienced up until now. The long-term inflation rate plus the real rate of interest plus term premium suggests that 5.5% is an appropriate yield for 30-year Treasurys. And query whether 0.5% is a sufficient real long term rate in an increasingly risky world. And the technicals could cause yields to go even higher, particularly in the short term. We saw the beginnings of that today. It wasn’t that long ago that a previous generation thought five percent was a low rate of interest for a long-term, fixed-rate obligation. But I could be wrong. AI might save us.

It’s not just the ‘Remainers’ whingeing - Britain really is broken afr.com/world/europe/i…