Aurelia Butler

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Australian home price rises will outpace overall inflation over the next couple of years, despite fading expectations of interest rate cuts, according to a Reuters poll of analysts who said the supply of affordable homes will keep falling short of demand.Robust demand for housing and the failure of homebuilders to adequately increase supply has turned Australia into one of the world’s most expensive housing markets, severely limiting options for many new homebuyers who dream of owning a property.After surging more than 25% during the pandemic, prices fully recovered those losses by the end of 2023, rising 8.1% over the year, in a quick turnaround that came despite the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) jacking up interest rates to a 12-year high of 4.35% in late 2023.Economists in a separate Reuters poll do not expect the RBA to cut rates until the fourth quarter of this year.The Reuters survey of 14 real estate analysts taken between May 10 and 28 expected home prices to rise 5.3% this year, a consensus view largely unchanged since August 2023. Analysts predicted a 5.0% rise in 2025 and 2026.Housing markets rarely rise that steadily and consistently, especially when interest rates are changing. Yet supported by strong economic fundamentals, relatively low unemployment and a high influx of immigrants, Australia’s housing market has nearly always outpaced analysts’ estimates.”Supply-demand imbalance has obviously taken the upper hand versus the capacity-to-pay issue. So we continue to see a very moderate positive growth for Australian house prices,” said My Bui, economist at AMP (OTC:AMLTF).”We’ve under-built in the past two or three years already. So even if the supply picks up from here, we’ll still have a little bit of under-supply that we need to catch up (from) in the past two years or so.”SHORT OF DEMAND Asked about the supply of affordable homes over the coming two to three years, all eight who answered said it would be short of demand. Four of those eight said it would be far short.Supply constraints, high mortgage rates and already- elevated home prices mean affordability for first-time buyers in the near term will worsen.The average asking price of an Australian property was A$779,817 ($520,293.90) in April, according to CoreLogic, nearly eight times the average annual income.It is close to 12 times in Sydney, where prices were forecast to rise 4.5% this year and 5.5% next.”Unfortunately it’s very hard for first-time buyers because prices have gone up quicker than they can save a deposit and quicker than they can get into the market,” said Michael Yardney at Metropole. “They are suffering because the cost of living has gone up (and) the rents are sky-rocketing. “The problem is the rich are getting richer. Those who own real estate, the value of their assets has gone up, in many cases double-digit growth over the last year. So, therefore, the house price has gone up considerably, but many people’s average income hasn’t,” Yardney added.In a bid to help Australians overcome the housing crisis, the Anthony Albanese-led government has pledged to build 1.2 million homes by 2030. Analysts unanimously agreed the government should be more involved in improving affordability. “The government’s job is to provide social and public housing for Australia’s poor and disenfranchised people. It has not been doing that,” Yardney said.(For other stories from the Reuters quarterly housing market polls:)($1 = 1.5020 Australian dollars) More

Standard DigitalWeekend Print + Standard Digitalwasnow $75 per monthComplete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.What’s included Global news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print editionWeekday Print EditionFT WeekendFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysisFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysisGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts10 monthly gift articles to shareGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print editionEverything in PrintWeekday Print EditionFT WeekendFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysisPlusEverything in Premium DigitalEverything in Standard DigitalGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresFirstFT newsletterVideos & PodcastsFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit app10 gift articles per monthExclusive FT analysisPremium newslettersFT Digital Edition10 additional gift articles per monthMake and share highlightsFT WorkspaceMarkets data widgetSubscription ManagerWorkflow integrationsOccasional readers go freeVolume discountFT Weekend Print deliveryPlusEverything in Standard DigitalFT Weekend Print deliveryPlusEverything in Premium Digital More

The letter, from Trump Media and Technology Group’s (TMTG) CEO Devin Nunes to Commissioner Scott Jolly, asks the office to look into any kind of market manipulation and, particularly, whether the trading has violated Louisiana Securities Law.According to the letter, a large number of TMTG’s shares traded in the last 30 trading days have been short sales, leading to a high volume of failures to deliver (FTDs), which happen when one party in a trading contract does not meet their trading obligations.Short selling involves borrowing a company’s shares and selling them in the hope of later buying them back at a lower price before returning the shares to their owner.The letter published SEC data that indicated FTDs exceeded a million shares on 11 different trading days between April 9 and April 30, reaching a peak of over 2.3 million FTDs on April 29 alone.”The anomalies surrounding the trading of DJT suggest the possibility of unlawful collusion among multiple market counterparties,” Nunes wrote.TMTG has been on a roller-coaster ride since going public. An army of Trump supporters and speculators snapped up its shares, sending them soaring as much as 59% in their Nasdaq debut on March 26, but the stock has since reversed those gains, leaving the company with a market value of about $9 billion.The company’s tiny revenue, deep losses and sky-high valuation have led many investors to predict their shares would tumble. It reported revenues of $770,500 for the March quarter and an adjusted operating loss of $12.1 million. More

WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) -The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced regulatory changes to allow more American financial support for Cuba’s nascent private sector and bolster access to U.S. internet-based services, modest but timely measures that officials said would help give the island’s budding small businesses a leg up.The U.S. said it would permit small entrepreneurs on the Communist-run island to open and access U.S. bank accounts from Cuba for the first time in decades, following prohibitions put in place shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.Cuban entrepreneurs would be allowed to use U.S.-based social media platforms, online payment sites, video conferencing and authentication services, previously unavailable to the sector and a major hurdle facing small businesses on the island.The moves aim to fulfill a long-delayed pledge by President Joe Biden’s administration to help Cuba’s budding entrepreneurs, giving its small but fast-growing private sector deference despite the Cold War-era U.S. embargo that has for decades complicated financial transactions by the Cuban government.”Today we’re taking an important step to support the expansion of free enterprise and the expansion of the entrepreneurial business sector in Cuba,” a senior U.S. official told reporters.Johana Tablada, Cuba’s deputy director of U.S. affairs, told reporters late on Tuesday that an initial read suggested the measures to be “very limited” and difficult to implement.The U.S. has designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, together with Syria, Iran, and North Korea, a label that further complicates financial transactions for listed nations.”The presence of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism will probably prevent the measures announced today from becoming a reality for the (private) sector that the United States government wants to favor,” she said.But she said Cuba would not stand in the way of the measures aimed at bolstering the private sector.U.S. officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, signaled they had sought to balance the goal of bolstering the private sector with a desire to avoid benefit to Cuban authorities.The measures would exclude Cuban officials, military officers and other government “insiders,” aiming to minimize resources that could benefit the Cuban government, the officials said.The U.S. officials declined to say whether the administration was conducting a formal review of Cuba’s continuing presence on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.Republican U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American lawmaker from South Florida, quickly criticized the Democratic administration’s announcement. “The Biden Admin is now giving the ‘Cuban private sector’ access to the U.S. financial system,” she said in a post on X. “This would make a mockery of American law, considering no progress has been made toward freedom on the Island and repression has intensified.”OPEN FOR BUSINESS Cuba has long blamed the U.S. embargo and associated sanctions for decades of economic crisis that have left it with little choice recently but to open its economy to small private business.Such businesses – for decades taboo in Communist-run Cuba – are now booming on the island.New Cuban laws put in place in 2021 have seen the establishment of upwards of 11,000 small businesses as of May, the government has said, ranging from corner grocers to plumbing, transportation and construction businesses.The regulations announced by the U.S. on Tuesday appear aimed at easing some of the complications faced by the growing private sector.They authorize U.S. banks to once again process so-called “U-Turn” fund transfers, allowing them to move money for Cuban nationals – including payments and remittances – so long as senders and recipients are not subject to U.S. law. Such measures are a step in the right direction, said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, but he noted a “glaring omission” in the policy: Cuban businesses are still handicapped by a requirement that they use banks in third countries to move their money.”As long as financing, investment, and payments need to be routed through third countries, the Biden-Harris Administration will be constraining precisely the activity it professes to support,” Kavulich said in an email. There was no sign that Tuesday’s announcement could foreshadow a more significant easing of U.S. sanctions and other restrictions on Cuba, beyond the modest steps that Biden has already taken since he became president. Some analysts have attributed Biden’s cautious handling of Cuba issues to his concern that a softened approach to Havana could hurt him politically among strongly anti-communist Cuban American voters in Florida, a key swing state that he lost to Trump in the 2020 election. More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.Japanese consumer confidence and Australian inflation are the main points of focus for markets in Asia on Wednesday, as investors ponder the broader implications of a widespread rise in bond yields.U.S. Treasury yields, the benchmark for global borrowing costs, rose to four-week highs on Tuesday in the wake of a weak U.S. debt auction, leading to a mixed performance on Wall Street.The Dow fell, the S&P 500 was flat and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s extraordinary rally powered the Nasdaq to a fresh record high – shares in the AI poster child have soared 20% in the last three trading days and the firm is now worth $2.8 trillion. But Asian markets on Wednesday may be more sensitive to the tightening of financial conditions from U.S. yields than the U.S. tech boom. Some analysts reckon the 10-year Treasury yield may now be entering a higher range of 4.50% to 4.70%, and the two-year yield is knocking on the door of 5.00% again.Closer to home, Japanese Government Bond yields are also under renewed scrutiny. Yields are making new multi-year highs across the curve, prompting a flurry of comments from Japanese and global officials in recent days. The 10-year JGB yield rose for an eighth straight day on Tuesday to hit a fresh 12-year high of 1.035%, and the 2-year JGB yield inched up to a new 15-year peak of 0.36%.Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda on Saturday said the bank’s ‘basic stance’ is that long-term bond yields should be set by markets. But this is difficult for the BOJ, which has for years been hoovering up JGBs in its battle against deflation and now owns more than 50% of the entire market.Higher bond yields raises the BOJ’s interest bill. A lot. On the other hand, higher JGB yields could support the yen, which officials would probably welcome – Japan’s finance minister on Tuesday said he was more concerned about the down side of a weak exchange rate right now, namely the increased burden on companies and consumers from higher import prices.   Do JGB yields take a breather here? BOJ data on Tuesday sent out mixed signals on inflation – corporate services prices are rising at their fastest pace since 2015, but other data show key measurements of underlying inflation falling below the bank’s 2% target for the first time since August 2022.If ‘higher for longer’ JGB yields boost the yen, Japan Inc. could feel the squeeze. The weak currency has attracted huge foreign investor flows into Japan, but with further ‘material’ weakness no longer likely, HSBC strategists are closing their overweight position in Japanese equities. Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Wednesday:- Australia inflation (April)- Japan consumer confidence (May)- IMF’s Gita Gopinath briefs media following IMF’s annual assessment of the Chinese economy More

Standard DigitalWeekend Print + Standard Digitalwasnow $85 per monthBilled Quarterly at $199. Complete digital access plus the FT newspaper delivered Monday-Saturday.What’s included Global news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print editionWeekday Print EditionFT WeekendFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysisFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysisGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts10 monthly gift articles to shareGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit appFirstFT: the day’s biggest stories20+ curated newslettersFollow topics & set alerts with myFTFT Videos & Podcasts20 monthly gift articles to shareLex: FT’s flagship investment column15+ Premium newsletters by leading expertsFT Digital Edition: our digitised print editionEverything in PrintWeekday Print EditionFT WeekendFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysisPlusEverything in Premium DigitalEverything in Standard DigitalGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresFirstFT newsletterVideos & PodcastsFT App on Android & iOSFT Edit app10 gift articles per monthExclusive FT analysisPremium newslettersFT Digital Edition10 additional gift articles per monthMake and share highlightsFT WorkspaceMarkets data widgetSubscription ManagerWorkflow integrationsOccasional readers go freeVolume discountFT Weekend Print deliveryPlusEverything in Standard DigitalFT Weekend Print deliveryPlusEverything in Premium Digital More

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s government and the province of Ontario struck a C$357 million deal on Tuesday to allocate federal funds to build affordable housing in the country’s most populous province to help alleviate a housing crisis after Ontario provided a revised action plan outlining its goals.Canada currently faces a housing affordability crisis with a growing population that is outpacing the number of available homes, increasing home prices and rents. Mortgage costs have also risen due to high inflation and interest rates. A C$6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund was launched by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in April to address the crisis.Ontario’s revised action plan gave more data and insights on which housing projects benefited from provincial investment, the two governments said in a joint statement on Tuesday. Ottawa had previously said it would withhold funding because the province did not meet its targets on affordable housing. “Canada and Ontario recognize that our collaboration is imperative to solving the housing crisis,” said Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser and his provincial counterpart in the statement. In a 2018 agreement, the federal government pledged to deliver funding if Ontario reached a target of 19,660 new affordable housing units by the end of 2028. However, officials have previously noted the province was greatly behind on their goal, with only 1,184 new units anticipated by the end of 2024-2025. In March, Fraser expressed concern over this in a letter to the provincial housing minister, noting it is “not realistic” for the province to reach 94% of its target in the next three years. Things now appear to have been smoothed out as Ontario has produced a revised action plan with various new measures, including establishing provincial supply targets with service managers, directing funding toward new projects, setting annual goals, and implementing better data collection and reporting mechanisms. More