Last week was characterised by risk on for Australian and global equity investors with bond market yields rising (10-Year Australian Government Bond Yield ending the week ~10 basis points higher in yield at 1.985%).   Last week also saw the release of an array of domestic economic data:   – Australian June labour force numbers with employment rising by 7.9k following an upwardly revised 19.2k increase in May. The lift in employment was driven by a rise in full time jobs of 38.4k, partially offset by a fall of 30.6k in part-time jobs. This resulted in a small uptick in the unemployment rate to 5.8%.   – Consumer sentiment fell by 3.0% in July but it is still higher than before the RBA’s May rate cut. Confidence was lower due to the Australian Federal election outcome uncertainty.   – The value of May 2016 housing finance saw the value of all housing-related lending increase by 1.0% over May with the annual growth rate stepping up to 15.4% (largely as lending in May 2015 was soft). While the value of housing loans to owner-occupiers fell by 0.6% (but annual growth remained buoyant), the value of loans to investors lifted by a solid 3.9%. This was after a sizeable fall in April as the banks began to compete in this market once more as the overall growth rate to this segment has fallen below the 10% cap imposed by APRA. Total lending for dwelling-related construction rose by 2.8% in May as a result.   Click below for Interactive Charts Chart 1: Bloomberg AUSBond Composite Index (Monthly) Chart 2: Bonds vs Equities 2015/2016 (Monthly)