Daily Overview: 3 November 2026

The RBA decision at 13:30 is the only game in town today, and the outcome is close to a foregone conclusion: the cash rate goes to 4.85 per cent, a fifth hike this year, with money markets pricing roughly an 85 per cent chance and 31 of 32 Reuters-surveyed economists on board. What matters more is the accompanying Monetary Policy Statement and the 14:30 press conference — traders have already moved on to betting whether this is the peak, and the bank's language will decide whether the recent bid for beaten-down retailers and cyclicals has legs. Our view: with trimmed mean inflation at 3.7 per cent and government recurrent spending still growing above 4.5 per cent a year, the hawkish case is not exhausted, and the "one and done" trade looks premature. The Ai Group Industry Index (-24.9 forecast versus -24.2) is a footnote, but it is consistent with a private-sector economy already contracting underneath the inflation problem.

Americans vote in the midterms today, with cost-of-living the swing issue and Democrats tying it to corruption allegations against the administration — the result matters for tariffs, Iran policy and the scramble for critical minerals, where 14 companies working on federal mining deals have ties to the Trump family or Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Overnight, JOLTs job openings (01:00, 7.13M consensus versus 7.079M previously) and Factory Orders (01:00, forecast 1.2 per cent after 0.1 per cent) test the soft-landing narrative after yesterday's strong ISM print of 55.5. API crude stocks land at 07:30 after a soft oil session that shrugged off attacks near Hormuz — a reminder that supply-risk premia are being overwhelmed by demand worries.

On the corporate and commodity side, expect Melbourne Cup Day thin volumes to mask real news: Westpac's flat $6.8bn profit and its call for a 10.9 per cent house price fall into March 2027 set the tone, with NAB and Macquarie reporting later this week. Hancock Prospecting's $2.8bn profit and 71.5Mt from Hancock Iron Ore confirmed Pilbara cash generation is intact even as prices soften, while scandium quietly became the week's most interesting critical minerals story — Sunrise Energy Metals' FID on Syerston, backed by up to US$400m from the US Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital, is the first major primary scandium mine anywhere. Watch the gold explorers after a dense run of drilling results, and Whitehaven's Winchester South as a live read on Queensland's approvals pipeline.

Australia

International

Economic Releases

• Australian building permits jumped 5.1 per cent month-on-month against a 2.1 per cent consensus, a sharp rebound from a 5.2 per cent fall — but with a rate rise imminent and prices falling, do not read this as the start of a construction recovery.
• China's RatingDog manufacturing PMI printed 52.0 against a 51.6 consensus, holding comfortably in expansion and supporting the iron ore and copper demand case.
• US ISM manufacturing beat at 55.5 versus 54.6 expected, with the employment sub-index at 52.4 — a strong result that complicates the global disinflation story.
• German retail sales missed badly, falling 2.0 per cent month-on-month against a 0.4 per cent consensus and 2.3 per cent lower year-on-year, a reminder that Europe's demand engine is stalling.
• Canada's S&P Global manufacturing PMI slipped into contraction at 49.6 from 51.5 previously.

Rates, Property & Policy

• The RBA is expected to lift the cash rate to 4.85 per cent today, adding about $6,450 a year to repayments on a typical $700,000 mortgage, with 31 of 32 surveyed economists and roughly 85 per cent of market pricing behind the move.
• Cotality's national Home Value Index fell 1.2 per cent in October and is down 8.1 per cent over seven months — the fastest decline in more than 40 years — while realestate.com.au's separate measure showed a 0.3 per cent October fall, a seventh straight monthly decline and prices 1.9 per cent lower year-on-year.
• Sydney has overtaken Melbourne as the deepest capital correction, down 10.1 per cent since February, with Perth down 8.9 per cent and Brisbane 8.3 per cent from their peaks; AMP has raised its peak-to-trough forecast to about 15 per cent.
• Westpac reported a flat $6.8bn annual profit, a 3bp contraction in net interest margin to 1.86 per cent and a final dividend of 77¢, while forecasting house prices to fall 10.9 per cent in the year to March 2027 and housing credit growth to slow to 3.6 per cent.
• Political pressure on government spending is intensifying: the ACTU protested outside the RBA, NSW Premier Chris Minns warned of job losses and shop closures, and the Treasury actuary refused to endorse the NDIA's $38.2bn savings claim ahead of December's mid-year update.
• Economists are pushing to axe the EV fringe-benefits tax exemption, with 112,000 claims now costing an estimated $1.35bn this year, 15 times the original forecast.

Mining & Resources

• Hancock Prospecting posted a $2.8bn net profit for FY26, with the newly consolidated Hancock Iron Ore business generating $1.8bn on 71.5Mt of production; Roy Hill has now shipped more than 500Mt in ten years as McPhee Creek, Hope Downs 2 and Mulga Downs advance.
• Sunrise Energy Metals approved a final investment decision on the Syerston scandium project in NSW — the world's first major primary scandium mine, targeting up to 60tpa from 2028 and backed by a conditional US$400m debt commitment from the US Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital.
• The Geological Survey of NSW's new scandium report identified pyroxenite-hosted laterite enrichment peaking at 761ppm at Whitbarrow Creek and values up to 1,920ppm at Hermidale, underlining Australia's leverage after Chinese export controls.
• Whitehaven Coal's $1bn Winchester South metallurgical coal project moved closer to development after the Queensland Land Court recommended approval, subject to strengthened rehabilitation conditions.
• Broken Hill Mines delivered its best quarterly silver production since June 2020 at 102,922oz, confirmed a new bulk-tonnage discovery in the Centenary Zone and outlined an $85m capital raise to fund a production decline.
• Chalice Mining hit up to 56.7g/t gold with widespread copper over roughly 500m of strike at the Kestrel prospect near Tennant Creek, with all six first-pass holes intersecting mineralisation.
• Gold drilling results flowed in: Regis Resources returned 14.3m at 4.6g/t at Beamish South and extensions at Garden Well; Sinclair Gold pushed Mt Henry mineralisation beyond its 1.8Moz resource with 5.4m at 15.4g/t; and Meeka Metals is developing a second underground mine at Fairway for first ore in January 2027.
• Astron expects to make a final investment decision on its Donald rare earths and mineral sands project in the December quarter after conditional approval of up to $180m in senior debt from Export Finance Australia and the NRFC.

Deals, Energy & Corporate

• KMD Brands, owner of Rip Curl and Kathmandu, entered exclusive takeover talks with New York's Bluestar Alliance — owner of Hurley, Dickies and Off-White — after a full-year loss of more than $300m.
• Avid Property Group matched Warburg Pincus's $5.50-a-share bid for Ingenia, valuing the land-lease developer at $3.2bn enterprise value and securing access to the data room.
• Rest Super committed $250m to MPower, a mid-scale solar and battery developer focused on projects of 5MW and under connected to local distribution networks — sidestepping the transmission logjam delaying larger renewables.
• NextDC faces a second strike against its remuneration report at its 20 November AGM after a downgrade of up to $145m and delays at its Melbourne M3 site sent shares down 42 per cent to a nine-year low; UBS was left holding stock from its $1.1bn convertible notes deal.
• David Jones missed the 30 October deadline to file its 2026 accounts, is aiming to cut its 38-store network to as few as 12 and remains under active ASIC investigation; suppliers including Seed Heritage and Scanlan Theodore are diverting Christmas stock to rivals.
• Samsung C&T acquired Perth-based EPC contractor Powertech for about $100m, adding roughly 300 engineers with renewables and electrification experience as it builds out its Australian full-wrap EPC offering.
• Snowy Hydro's long-awaited Snowy 2.0 update lifted the target cost to $22.2bn (with $25bn allowed) and completion to 2029, eight years late, reigniting calls for an independent assessment of whether to terminate the project.
• ASIC threatened legal action against super funds after finding systemic complaints-handling failures across 45 trustees, with almost a quarter not analysing complaints data frequently enough to identify systemic issues.