Already a subscriber?In his mid-year economic outlook released on Thursday night, the chief economist of private capital giant Apollo, Torsten Slok, describes a world headed for a tug of war between two economic forces.
The pain being felt by households is clearly on display in weak consumer spending and the per capita recession that has been quietly running for a year., albeit after a long period in which low rates and pandemic stimulus held these metrics artificially low. Loan arrears are also creeping higher, albeit from low levels.
The level of speculation on the local sharemarket certainly doesn’t feel anything like that on Wall Street, where Nvidia’s rise – 38 per cent in a month – has driven the market. But the ASX 200 remains within 1.4 per cent of the all-time high it hit in March and investment bankers are feeling frisky after the success of the Guzman float. Financial conditions here are relatively loose, too.