Empower Blog US Economy

Navigating Landing: VanEck’s 2023 Q3 Summary

Please Note: This report was created and provided by VanEck. During the past quarter, the US government narrowly avoided defaulting on its debt. Like many of the previous 78 times Congress has acted to revise or extend the ceiling, this one came down to the wire. Many market participants thought this time would be different and that the comprom...

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The great impasse: VanEck’s 2023 Q1 Summary

Please Note: This report was created and provided by VanEck. The events of the past few weeks are a reminder how fragile markets and banking systems can be. The events also served as a reminder of the lengths central banks and financial regulatory authorities will go to, to ensure the system remains robust. The US Federal Reserve (the Fed) move...

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Goldilocks days are over: VanEck’s Q4 Summary

Please Note: This report was created and provided by VanEck. The halcyon days of Goldilocks are well and truly over for markets and they now resemble an aimless vagabond. Investors are deep in the inflation era. The question is, how deep? Are we up to our knees, our waist or our necks? And is the depth subsiding? Central banks around the wor...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2017

Same old, same old from the RBA today, the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So no real movement.   In terms of economic news, let's look globally first, and the US is probably the main story here. We did see the Trump administration release a Tax Reform package. Now, this tax reform package is all about that one flat tax rate of 20%. T...

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RBA Rate Decision – May 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve board met, and the kept the cash rate on hold once again in May. That keeps the cash rate at 1.5%, so monetary policy remains on hold, but we now are coming to the month of federal budgets and state budgets. And this is where we start to look at fiscal policy. So what are our state governments and also our federa...

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RBA Rate Decision – April 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met, and they've kept the Cash Rate on hold at 1.5% for April 2017. Now there is a lot of commentary on the marketplace over the last month around property, and I want to get to that in a minute. Let's just quickly wrap up what's happening in terms of the world market and mainly the US. We did see the Cash ...

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RBA Rate Decision – March 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Board met, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5% for another month. Now it was an interesting February in regards to what's been happening globally, and I want to talk about that story because we start to see GDP numbers from around the globe starting to be reported. Let's start with the US. We saw some very goo...

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RBA Rate Decision – February 2017

At the first board meeting of 2017, the Reserve Governor and the Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold. It's been a while since we last caught up you know. We last met in December so there's been a lot of data that I've wanted to share with you and talk through, and a lot of developments that have been happening in the housing market. ...

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RBA Rate Decision – December 2016

So much to talk about in this December Rates Announcement! Firstly, we'll start with interest rates on hold at 1.50%. The Reserve Governor and the Board met and kept rates on hold. Now, what's fascinating is if we had have waited another day, when our GDP numbers came out in Australia, we could have seen a different result. As you know, there's ...

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RBA Rate Decision – March 2016

Today, the reserve government and the board meet and they have kept interest rate on hold for another month. Now it has been an interesting month, past month, we saw the labor party come out with negative gearing policy changes. What's interesting about this negative gearing policy change is the way they've decided to treat new and existing propert...

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2016 Global Economy & Equity Outlook (Part 1) | United States Economy

Here are the other parts of the 2016 Global Economy & Equity Outlook: Part 1: United States Economy Part 2: Asian and European Economy Part 3: Commodities Market Part 4: Australian Economy Transcript: Ben Kingsley: So here we are for another year. I’m with my business partner Michael Savy who’s our chief investment officer. He heads ...

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RBA Rate Decision – December 2015

Yes, it is the first of December and I still have the remnants of my mustache from Movember. Trust me, it will be gone by tonight. Just a busy morning. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about my mustache and Movember but thank you to those who donated. It is very kind of you. Let's talk about the RBA. As widely anticipated, and it is pretty much unanimo...

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2015 Share Market & Equities Outlook – Part 2

Hard Minerals & Global Market – Asia, US & Europe Ben: Let’s talk about hard minerals and hard resources. Obviously iron ore is the big talking point down from peaks of $150 a ton thereabout down to earlier in the $130 a ton, now down to collapsing sub $65 a ton. Michael: Similar to the oil market story, it is a discussion area on t...

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