Financial markets are betting the Reserve Bank will hike interest rates for a third straight meeting next Tuesday

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Inflation jumped to 4.6% in the year to March, from 3.7% the month before, in what the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, warned was the start of an Iran war-linked fuel shock that will ripple through the economy over coming months.

With consumer prices now growing at their fastest pace in two-and-a-half years, financial markets are betting the Reserve Bank will hike interest rates for a third straight meeting next Tuesday as officials struggle to manage the nightmare scenario of containing inflation even as growth is expected to slow sharply.

A poll shows most Australians think the country is either in a recession or will be soon. Economists have a different view

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Australian households were already on edge before the bombs started falling in Iran.

The cost of living was high and inflation was accelerating again, forcing the Reserve Bank to start ratcheting up interest rates.

The trend has been accelerated by the US-Israel war on Iran, leaving households – and cafe owners – glum, surveys suggest

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For many coffee drinkers, takeaway orders are changing from a habitual purchase to an occasional treat, as elevated petrol prices and other living costs leave households feeling glum.

This rapid shift in behaviour has disappointed cafe owners and surprised economists, raising an uneasy question: if takeaway coffee sales are falling, is the economy next?

Experts say US market ‘may have run ahead of itself’ while ASX 200’s more modest recovery is due in part to Australia’s reliance on fuel imports

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One day the IMF warns of a global recession, the next day stocks on Wall Street hit a record high.

From looking at the complete U-turn in fortunes in America, you wouldn’t know the world was in the grips of an unprecedented energy shock.