Author: roymorgansocial

Investors bring forward rate rise expectations

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Original article by William McInnes
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 25 : 7-Jul-21

Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics now expects the Reserve Bank of Australia to begin tightening monetary policy in early 2023, and he has flagged a cash rate of 0.75 per cent by the end of that year. RBA governor Philip Lowe has previously reiterated that interest rates are likely to remain at 0.1 per cent until at least 2024, but he indicated in a statement on 6 July that this is now merely its "central scenario" and the conditions that could justify a rate rise could be met earlier than this. Interest rate futures pricing also suggests that the cash rate could begin rising earlier than expected.

CORPORATES
CAPITAL ECONOMICS LIMITED, RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA

Big super lobs $22b for nation’s biggest airport

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Original article by Jenny Wiggins
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 16 : 6-Jul-21

A consortium comprising IFM Investors, QSuper and US-based Global Infrastructure Partners has made an unsolicited cash offer of $8.25 per share for Sydney Airport. The board of Sydney Airport has advised shareholders to take no action on the $22 billion bid and is still considering the offer. Unisuper, Sydney Airport’s biggest shareholder with a 15 per cent stake, has responded favourably to the bid. One condition of the consortium’s bid is that Unisuper retains its stake in Sydney Airport and not sell out for cash.

CORPORATES
SYDNEY AIRPORT – ASX SYD, IFM INVESTORS PTY LTD, QSUPER LIMITED, GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERS, UNISUPER LIMITED

Employment surge turns up heat on rates

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Original article by Tom Dusevic
The Australian – Page: 4 : 6-Jul-21

Further indications that the Australian economy is continuing to strengthen may prompt the Reserve Bank to increase the cash rate earlier than expected. There was three per cent growth in job advertisements during June, according to data from the ANZ Bank, and the number of job ads is now 39.1 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, revised data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that retail spending increased by 0.4 per cent in May and 7.7 per cent over the year to May. The COVID-19 lockdown in Greater Sydney is tipped to hit retail sales for June, although economists expect any impact to be short-lived.

CORPORATES
RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED – ASX ANZ, AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS

No more welcome to country for Rio Tinto, Indigenous owners say

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Original article by Lorena Allan
The Guardian Australia – Page: Online : 6-Jul-21

The Eastern Guruma people have told Rio Tinto that they will no longer perform ‘welcome to country’ ceremonies at any of its events or any events that it sponsors. They have also refused to have any meetings with Rio Tinto for at least three months. The Eastern Guruma people are angry with Rio Tinto after it was revealed that priceless cultural materials rescued from their sacred sites were thrown in a rubbish tip in the 1990s, and that Rio did not tell them of the error. Forty per cent of Rio’s Pilbara mine holdings in Western Australia are on Eastern Guruma traditional lands.

CORPORATES
RIO TINTO LIMITED – ASX RIO

AustralianSuper targets $500bn after stellar 20pc return

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Original article by Glenda Korporaal
The Australian – Page: 13 & 20 : 6-Jul-21

AustralianSuper’s balanced option has posted a return of 20.43 per cent for 2020-21, compared with just 0.52 per cent in the previous financial year. The industry superannuation fund now boasts assets of $225m, and CEO Mark Delaney says it expects this to top $470bn by 2026. He adds that while equities are likely to perform well in 2021-22, he does not expect super funds to match their returns for 2020-21. Meanwhile, AustralianSuper has secured a deal to acquire a 40 per cent stake in the Moorebank intermodal logistics facility in Sydney.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIANSUPER PTY LTD

Breaches threaten Sydney lockdown exit

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Original article by Jill Margo, Finbar O’Mallon
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 6 : 6-Jul-21

New South Wales has reported 35 new locally-acquired COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, although 24 were in isolation while infectious and another four had been partially isolating. The new cases include three people who attended a party at an inner-Sydney hotel in breach of lockdown rules, as well as two additional residents of an aged-care home. There are now 312 active cases state-wide. Professor Raina MacIntyre believes that the state must record no more than five new cases of community transmission on 8 July for lockdown restrictions in Greater Sydney to be eased on the following day. Meanwhile, more than 600 health workers at two Sydney hospitals are self-isolating after being deemed to be close contacts of an unvaccinated student nurse who had worked at both hospitals while she was infectious with Covid-19.

CORPORATES
UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Is the COVID-19 honeymoon over for New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern?

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 6-Jul-21

Support for New Zealand’s Labour/Greens government dropped 5% points to 51% in June – the lowest for the Government since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Support for the Labour Party was down 6.5% points to 38.5%, while support for the Greens was up 1.5% points to 12.5%. The governing parties are now just 7.5% points ahead of the Parliamentary opposition National/Act NZ/Maori Party on 43.5%, up 4.5% points since May. Support for National was up 1% point to 29.5% in June and support for Act NZ was up 2.5% points to a record high of 11.5%. Support for the Maori Party increased by 1% point to 2.5%. A small minority of 5.5% of electors support other minor parties outside Parliament with support for NZ First down 0.5% points to 1.5% and The Opportunities Party (TOP) up 0.5% points to 2% in June. The latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll on voting intention was conducted by telephone – both landline and mobile – with a New Zealand-wide cross-section of 951 electors during June. Meanwhile, the Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating dropped by 10pts in June to 124 – the lowest it has been since October 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED, MORGAN POLL, LABOUR PARTY (NEW ZEALAND), GREEN PARTY OF AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND, NATIONAL PARTY OF NEW ZEALAND, ACT NEW ZEALAND, THE MAORI PARTY, THE OPPORTUNITIES PARTY

Big team but little expectation on Games

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Original article by Michael Bleby
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 3 : 6-Jul-21

Australia will send a team of 472 athletes to the Tokyo Olympic Games, including 254 women and a record 16 indigenous athletes. Australia will compete in 33 sports at the coronavirus-delayed Olympics; however, the team’s chef de mission Ian Chesterman says the Australian Olympic Committee has chosen not to issue an official forecasts about the number of medals that the nation will win. The Australian team fell short of medal expectations at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

Supermarkets dominate Australia’s most trusted brands in 2021 led by Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings & ALDI

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 6-Jul-21

Roy Morgan data scientists analysed nominations from more than 20,000 Australians to identify the nation’s 20 most trusted brands, and the 20 most distrusted brands. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a retail sales boom on the back of record Government support for the economy, and it is perhaps unsurprising that leading supermarket and retail brands fill five of the top six spots as Australia’s most trusted brands. The latest Roy Morgan Risk Report reveals that the nation’s two largest supermarket brands, Woolworths and Coles, took out first and second places on the list of most trusted brands in the country in early 2021, followed closely by leading hardware retailer Bunnings Warehouse and fellow supermarket ALDI. The Roy Morgan Risk Report also reveals the top-20 list of Australia’s most distrusted brands, with several brands entering the top 10 for the first time including Amazon, Rio Tinto and Huawei, and brands such as Crown Resorts, Uber, Twitter and TikTok new entrants into the top 20 list. Leading banks including NAB, ANZ and CBA were among the big improvers on the distrust ladder with all three dropping well out of the top-10 most distrusted brands. The Roy Morgan Risk Monitor surveys approximately 1,800 Australians every month to measure levels of trust and distrust in more than 900 brands across 26 industry sectors.

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN LIMITED, WOOLWORTHS SUPERMARKETS, COLES SUPERMARKETS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, BUNNINGS GROUP LIMITED, ALDI STORES SUPERMARKETS PTY LTD, AMAZON.COM INCORPORATED, RIO TINTO LIMITED – ASX RIO, HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD, CROWN RESORTS LIMITED – ASX CWN, UBER AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, TWITTER INCORPORATED, TIKTOK, NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED – ASX NAB, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED – ASX ANZ, COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA – ASX CBA

ACCC to target Google and Facebook again

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Original article by Aaron Patrick
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 3 : 6-Jul-21

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims says a US court’s recent rejection of an antitrust case against Facebook will not deter global regulators from taking further action against digital giants. However, rather than seeking to have companies such as Facebook and Google broken up, the ACCC will use two current inquiries into digital advertising services and digital platform services to try to limit their ability to exploit their market power. Both inquiries are slated to report to the federal government in coming months.

CORPORATES
GOOGLE INCORPORATED, FACEBOOK INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION