No rate cuts til May; why do we care about Qantas upgrades?

1. Why rates won't fall until May next year

2. Albo has himself to blame for pickle over Qantas

3. Wisetech and MinRes boards fail

4. Can Myer re-invent itself?

There are seven things you need to remove from your home before trying to sell it. The Property Pendulum presented by Domain and Fear & Greed puts together the list - and it's bad news for anyone with a home office.

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Thanks for reading my opinions on the week's biggest stories.

- Sean Aylmer

After three-and-a-half years, headline inflation has fallen back into the Reserve Bank’s preferred target range of two to three per cent, coming in at 2.8 per cent for the 12 months to the September quarter. The all-important trimmed mean measure, which the central bank focuses on to set interest rates, came in at 3.5 per cent, right on expectations. The difference between the two was primarily the federal government’s energy rebates of $300 a year which kicked in from 1 July this year. The best news in the report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is that the trimmed mean measure has fallen from four per cent in the June quarter to 3.5 per cent. But it is still too high. What does it mean for rates? The Reserve Bank board will not cut rates when it meets next week. The next quarterly CPI reading is January next year. The trimmed mean still has to fall a long way for the central bank to be confident it will stay low. May 2024 is the most likely date for another rate cut.

The moral tenor of Anthony Albanese is under question today more than at any time during his Prime Ministership because of phone calls he may have made more than a decade ago. As Transport Minister in the Gillard government, did he ring the then-boss of Qantas, Alan Joyce, and ask for upgrades for personal travel? To say the PM is equivocating on the question is something of an understatement. A book released this week on Qantas by former Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston, says Albanese was upgraded 22 times by the national carrier, presumably from economy to something better. It does not quite say the then-Transport Minister rang Joyce and asked for upgrades, but it infers it. Albanese says he has declared all upgrades and has a failing memory on what he has spoken to Joyce about. That hasn’t helped his case because it doesn’t pass the pub test. It’s wrong that a government leader could ring the boss of an airline and get upgraded, while the rest of us schmucks are loaded into cattle class. Whether or not he made the phone call matters. If Qantas saw his name on a list and upgraded him, then I have no problem with that. I don’t care that he and other politicians are allowed to be part of the exclusive Chairman’s lounge at Qantas. I do care if he made a phone call to Joyce and asked for an upgrade.

Will voters in the USA elect a nearly 80-year old brawler, with narcissistic tendencies and hints of misogyny, racism and arrogance (I’m being kind)? Or will they elect a 60-year old black woman who is fiercely liberal? The fact that being fiercely liberal, and black and a woman can offset narcissism, misogyny, racism and arrogance says plenty about America. The USA is truly a great country, the powerhouse of the global economy and at the forefront of the technological revolution. It is vibrant and an incredible place to visit and live. It is a melting pot of cultures and has a long history of welcoming migrants, more so than most other nations. Yet politics has become so polarised that elections are no longer fought by people trying to claim the middle ground and bring society together. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and to a lesser extent Barack Obama and even George W Bush could bring people together. They were negotiators and diplomats, as well as Presidents. This time next week we will have an idea of who will be the 47^th President of the United Sates. If Donald Trump succeeds, the people of the US really will deserve what they get.

Visiting Sydney as a child, a highlight was heading to DJs or Grace Bros (as it was) for lunch with my grandmother. It was quite the outing. It was long before online shopping, and the explosion in chain stores and quick service restaurants. How the world has changed. In 2004 Grace Bros was rebranded Myer to help freshen its image. In 2024, the fight to be modern, and relevant, continues. The announcement this week that Myer would takeover five brands from ASX-listed Premier Investments – Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Portmans, Dotti and Jacqui E – in a $1 billion deal has all the hallmarks of corporate wrangling. All that aside, will the deal save Myers? The department store’s greatest asset is its 10.5 million MyerOne customers. The incoming five brands’ greatest asset is profit margins. The people that will be running the show – veteran retailer Solomon Lew and former Qantas Frequent Flyer boss Olivia Wirth – look to be a great team, as long as they can work together. If they can marry the best of both assets – margins and loyalty – Myer could once again become a shopping powerhouse. There is something very promising about this deal.

Last week I said the founder and CEO of WiseTech Global, Richard White, and the founder and CEO of Mineral Resources, Chris Ellison, should be suspended from their jobs. Last Thursday night White stepped down from being CEO of the software group, but he hasn’t gone very far. After a holiday he will come back on the same salary and report directly to the board in a strategic/research role. (He just won’t have all those people problems to deal with as CEO.) Shareholders love it and WiseTech’s share price jumped. Is this good corporate governance? No. It's weak and makes a mockery of the standards we expect CEOs of ASX-listed companies to live up to. Chris Ellison is still in his job, even though it has emerged that he took four years to tell MinRes directors that he had been negotiating a settlement with the ATO over a tax evasion scheme that involved the company. When the board did find out, it didn’t tell shareholders, saying it wasn’t material to the share price. Some big investors like Australian Super are not happy about the lack of disclosures. The MinRes board has its head in the sand, and Ellison’s behaviour is also not up to the standards we expect of an ASX-listed company.

5. US politics has plumbed now lows

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AND ONE LAST THING...

Everyone knows the Google Doodle - the animation of the Google logo on the search engine's home page. It changes constantly to mark significant days. Sometimes the Doodle is a simple game - like this one today for Halloween.

But last week's effort, called Rise of the Half Moon, was one of the best games in a long, long time. Give it a go - just don't blame us if you get hooked.