Stephen Koukoulas
speaker
2,355 appearances
24 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 20 Sep
Stephen Koukoulas’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 24 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 6.
Appearances
We're seeing that concern coming through there.
So commodity prices, I think, are going to be skewed to the downside simply because China is sort of recording a more moderate growth and the growth that it is recording is more services-based rather than dependent on commodity inputs into the construction process and manufacturing process and these sorts of things.
Again, not a super bearish outlook, but I think more a period where, you know, the price of coal and gold and iron ore and copper and these sorts of things will be skewed flat to down again because of the lack of intensity, if you like, in terms of the usage.
And there's a pretty decent supply of all these commodities right now.
There's no real shortages occurring in any of them at the moment.
My asterisk is homegrown and it's the housing market.
Again, we've seen a lot of conversation about the recent price data.
You've had a small fall at this stage, yes, a very tiny fall in house prices in the context of a really strong run-up in house prices over the prior five years.
My asterisk and where it could all go belly up, to use a bit of an emotive term, is if we do finally get a price increase
of substance.
I won't call it a crash, but something where we genuinely get people with negative equity in a way that creates bad and doubtful debts for the banks.
They are under a lot of pressure then in terms of their future lending because they're not going to be lending to people
who are buying an asset that's depreciating in price.
And if we get that sort of fall in house prices, it clearly erodes confidence and undermines bottom line GDP, and therefore unemployment goes up.
So you get this circularity.
And while I'm not anywhere near a GFC type banking problem that we saw in the US or in Ireland or in the UK, that is my asterisk and sort of X factor watch out issue for the economy.
And I'm afraid to say it's a negative one.
if that house price fall does materialise, become more intense and broadly based, then I think it's a genuine concern for the economy.
Yeah, look, it's consistent with the view, and this is sort of like a more medium-term structural view of the economy.
It is slowing down.
Showing 1241–1260 of 2,355 · page 63 of 118
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