1. Stocks expected to rise today

Energy stocks and the overall local market are expected to rise today, as Wall Street was positive before the close. The price of oil extended its recovery after Saudi Arabia said OPEC + was not considering a production increase, which would be good for lower petrol prices, as well as inflation. In the US, CNBC reported that: “Stocks rose Tuesday morning as Wall Street looked past more China covid lockdowns and instead focused on a host of strong earnings reports and easing rates during a short week of trading for the Thanksgiving holiday.

2. On China

Again from CNBC: “China saw its first deaths in the mainland from Covid since May over the weekend. It prompted fears among investors that the country could bring back restrictions meant to slow virus spread, which would hurt business. Just a week ago the country began to ease some of its tight covid measures, on its way to a looser policy.”

The recent comeback for stocks where our market is up 11% since October 3 has been partly helped by the better outlook for the world economy with the expectation that China would gradually escape lockdown.

China reopening would be “extremely growth positive,” according to Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management “As ever though, investors should cautiously monitor developments as faithful execution of the reopening plan will be key to the investment outlook,” she said in a Tuesday note.

3. Buying a house is record high expensive

The AFR says the ANZ/CoreLogic Housing Affordability report shows is not great reading for anyone wanting to get onto the property ladder. “The portion of income needed to service a mortgage for an average Sydney home blew out to a record high of 51.1 per cent during the third quarter, sparked by the rapid rise in interest rates,” writes Nila Sweeney. “Melbourne households also now need to spend a bigger share of their incomes to repay a new loan, which has risen by 4.3 percentage points to 42.4 per cent.”

This is the across country table.

4. RBA Governor’s gloomy crystal ball

The SMH’s Shane Wright tells us that Dr Phil Lowe is not as positive as once was. “Interest rates will swing up and down more often to deal with increasingly erratic inflation over coming years, with Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe warning climate change, an ageing population, the breakdown of supply chains and the overhaul of the energy grid will all put upward pressure on prices.” Wright revealed. “As the OECD forecast Australia’s growth rate to more than halve over the next two years due to the turmoil unleashed by the war in Ukraine, Lowe said the federal budget bottom line would have to sharply improve to ensure the country could move swiftly to deal with the economic challenges ahead.”

Happily, the OECD and the RBA aren’t the world’s greatest forecasters.

5. Dr Phil warns Albo about bad economic medicine

The Australian reports that the “Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has challenged the Albanese government to make workplaces more flexible and productive and to get the budget under control in order to secure the country’s prosperity in a more dangerous post-Covid world.”

This comes as Labor tries to push through a new IR bill before Christmas that supports across the board wage rises not linked to an enterprise’s productivity.

Dr Lowe said that “as a country, we need to do what we can to make sure that the supply side of our own economy is flexible”.

This will give independent Senator David Pocock heart as calls for a delay in the bill to make sure it doesn’t have unintended consequences.