Kia ora,
and welcome to Tuesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.
I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.
Today we lead news poor data has overwhelmed equity market sentiment today.
Wall Street has opened the week after their long holiday weekend decidedly lower. The S&P500 is down -0.9% so far and falling. European markets had a terrible run overnight with many key markets down -2%. In contrast, yesterday's Asian sessions brought modest gains.
Finally, markets are noticing the weakening data. The mood has been turned by steeper than expected contraction in the US factory sector. The widely-watched ISM PMI deepened its contraction. The US version of the Markit PMI wasn't so negative, but is being ignored.
In fact, apart from the bad US result, a number of other international PMI surveys out overnight were modestly positive and these pushed the global summary to its best reading in seven months.
But other poor US data has kept Wall Street worried. US construction spending fell more than expected in October, for example, and is barely above the same level a year ago. Thanksgiving holiday retail sales were down more than -6%, and more than the rise in online sales.
And not helping was a US Administration decision to add tariffs on goods from Brazil and Argentina, accusing them of keeping their currencies low. It is a hard argument to understand as neither country has a war chest large enough to take on Wall Street traders and if the US can't control its own currency why do they think others can. Only the Chinese have been able to do that.
The China Caixin PMI which is the private survey, has backed up the small improvement their official survey reported yesterday. But both are barely expansionary. The same surveys in Japan is reporting a deteriorating situation.
Japan car sales fell -14% in November to be -1.3% lower year to date. But at least the November decline was less than the -26% slump in October. Weather and sales tax hikes are badly affecting sales at the end of 2019.
In the EU, their PMIs are negative everywhere except in France. But at least they didn't get worse in November.
[Advert]
With Hatch, anyone can invest in the US share markets.
Billionaire Warren Buffett says investors should stick to areas they know, so it’s no surprise that Kiwis are backing technology companies through the Hatch investing platform. Companies like Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Disney and Tesla regularly feature as the most popular shares.
Visit www.hatch.as/investing to buy any of these US-listed shares and learn more.
There was a bunch of Australian economic data out yesterday and most of it wasn't very good. Company profits are falling, firms are destocking, productivity fell and housing building consents fell. And that is in addition to two contracting PMI reports.
Worse, their rural sector is really struggling, especially in the east. Grain and livestock output is expected to plunge as their drought worsens.
The UST 10yr yield has risen sharply today, now at 1.83% and a +5 bps gain to start the Wall Street week.
Gold is at US$1,462/oz and down -US$2 overnight.
US oil prices are firmer today at just on US$56/bbl. The Brent benchmark is just on US$61/bbl. Saudi Arabia is pressing OPEC to make output cuts to try an hold the price from falling further.
The Kiwi dollar is noticeably higher today as international traders bid it up when they heard about the NZ Government stimulus reset. It is now at 65.1 USc and almost +1c higher than this time yesterday. On the cross rates we are now at 95.4 AUc and another +½c gain overnight. Remember, this rate was 92.8 AUc at the beginning of November. Against the euro we are quite a lot firmer too at 58.8 euro cents. That pushes the TWI-5 up to over 70.3 and it highest since July.
Bitcoin is lower today at US$7,281 and down -0.5% from this time yesterday.
You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.
Get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz and subscribe to receive this podcast in your favourite podcast app - we're on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or subscribe on our website.
Tell your friends and leave us a review - we welcome feedback from listeners.
Comentarios