Kia ora,
and welcome to Thursday'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 with news of more subdued economic signals.
Giant equipment maker Caterpillar, an industrial bellwether, has sharply cut its forecasts saying the trade wars are hurting it. Sales in Asia-Pacific, its third biggest market, fell -13% as it faced falling demand in China and stiff competition from local rivals, while revenue in its main developed world market in North America fell -3%. This contrasts with China growth for them of +36% in the prior year, and North America growth of +15% on the same basis.
Equity markets also absorbed the news of a major profit fall at Boeing, although that isn't a big surprise given in 737MAX problems. So far today Wall Street is up a lacklustre +0.1% following mixed European markets. Shanghai and Hong Kong were lower yesterday, and the NZX50 has a terrible day, closing more than -2% lower.
In Canada, their wholesale trade slumped in September. It was expected to be lower, but not actually decline.
In the EU, consumer confidence survey data showed the same trend, coming in even worse than analysts were expecting and at the worst level of the year.
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In China, their top judicial and police authorities have made lending at annualised rates above 36% a criminal offence as part of a crackdown on underground banking. Actually, the court ruling happened in July, but bringing the government agencies into line has taken a while and it multi-agency stance was only announced yesterday. This will have broad implications for many firms.
In Australia, they are reporting that foreign money, mainly Asian but not Chinese, ir pouring in to commercial property investment there.
The UST 10yr yield is lower than this time yesterday, down -4 bps at 1.75%.
Gold has recovered the ground it lost yesterday, up +US$8 to US$1,492/oz.
US oil prices are much firmer today, up more than +US$1, now just over US$55.50/bbl. The Brent benchmark is just over US$60.50.
The Kiwi dollar is still firm against the greenback, now at 64.2 USc. On the cross rates we are firm as well at 93.8 AUc. Against the euro we are at 57.7 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 up at 69.2.
Bitcoin has taken a sudden drop this morning and is now at US$7,471 and that is more than +US$700 lower in a day and a -9% dive. Zuckerberg's Congressional testimony on Libra seems to have undermined bitcoin.
You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.
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