Australia’s commodity-rich economy is on track for a soft landing, despite an alarming slowdown over the last year, supported by a household savings and an injection of pension funds as members of Generation X join baby boomers in retirement, according to the world’s biggest asset manager BlackRock, the Wall Street Journal reported. Craig Vardy, a portfolio manager for BlackRock based in Sydney, told reporters at a briefing that with swarms now tapping their retirement funds, the pool of savings in the economy is rising and is acting to ward off a recession.

Australian unemployment climbed to a two-year high at the opening of the year, highlighting the nation’s cooling labor market and sending the currency lower as traders brought forward bets on an interest-rate cut, Bloomberg News reported. The economy added just 500 roles in January, confounding expectations for a 25,000 gain and well shy of numbers needed to hold down the jobless rate, government data showed Thursday. Unemployment advanced to 4.1% from 3.9% while the participation rate was steady.

Australian consumer confidence fell last week after the Reserve Bank of Australia left interest rates on hold while signaling that all policy options remain on the table including further interest rate increases, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer confidence fell 1.2 points from the prior week, according to a survey by ANZ and pollster Roy Morgan. The four-week moving average was down 0.5 points.

An Australian regulator is reviewing how pension funds value unlisted assets, ranging from private equity to office towers, as part of a long-term push to limit risks within the illiquid holdings popular in the A$2.5 trillion ($1.7 trillion) sector, Reuters reported. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) requested information from multiple pension funds in late 2023 as part of the review into unlisted asset valuation governance, according to a previously unreported November 2023 letter seen by Reuters.

Australian home prices just hit a high in what was already one of the world’s most expensive real-estate markets. Now, Australian officials say they have a plan that will help to make housing more affordable: curtailing migration, the Wall Street Journal reported. A new policy, unveiled this week, will result in a 14% reduction in migrants over the next four years than would otherwise be expected, according to government forecasts.

Australia’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged at its final meeting of the year on Tuesday as cooling inflation and a softening labor market suggest its policy tightening to date is gaining traction, Bloomberg News reported. Markets showed disappointment at the neutral tone of the post-meeting statement, sending the currency and government bond yields lower after the Reserve Bank held its cash rate at a 12-year high of 4.35%, as anticipated. “Higher interest rates are working to establish a more sustainable balance between aggregate supply and demand,” Governor Michele Bullock said.

Australia’s government will introduce legislation this week to facilitate the largest overhaul of the central bank in a generation, including setting up a separate governance board and scrapping the treasurer’s power to reverse policy decisions, Bloomberg News reported. The bill is the result of an independent review of the Reserve Bank that made 51 recommendations, some of which require modifications to the RBA’s operating law.

Australia's competition watchdog said on Monday new competition laws were required in response to the rapid expansion of digital platforms such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft in the country, Reuters reported. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in its latest report for the Digital Platform Services Inquiry raised concerns that expansion of these platforms has increased the risk of them engaging in harmful behaviour such as invasive data collection and practices that lock in customers and limit their choices.

Australian dealmakers are battling to rescue A$38 billion ($24 billion) worth of mergers that have been terminated or challenged by regulators and shareholders, Bloomberg News reported. The value of these deals is equivalent to about 40% of the year’s A$96 billion in announced transactions targeting Australian companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Many of the takeover proposals were abandoned or challenged in the second half of this year as concerns have mounted over higher borrowing costs and an uncertain economic outlook.

he Reserve Bank of Australia sharply revised up its forecasts for core inflation in the near term and warned that inflation pressures are cooling at a slower pace than anticipated against the backdrop of an economy that is proving more resilient than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trimmed mean inflation, which is central to policy decisions at the RBA, is now expected to be running at 4.0% on-year by mid-2024, up from a forecast of 3.25% on-year in August.