Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news the final round of Australian tax cuts have come into effect.
But first, the updated factory PMIs for the giant US economy have brought another diverging set. The S&P Global/Markit one, the internationally-benchmarked version, reported a rise based on a new order expansion to describe a moderately expanding sector. But the widely-watched local version from the ISM reported the opposite - easing new order levels and a small contraction in the sector. Take your pick. The recent trends in both are opposite too. It is hard to know what to make of these competing views, and markets seem to have ignored them.
In China, the private PMI survey by Caixin was much more upbeat than the official government version. This internationally-benchmarked Caixin factory PMI reported that in June business conditions improved the most in over three years. But it turns out that is not saying a lot - the improvement from May was marginal. But at least it is positive, and underpinned by rising new orders.
Staying in China, regular readers will know that we have been watching the Chinese Government bond yields falling into record-low territory as investors continued to snap up these bonds amid pessimism about the domestic economy. Now their central bank has moved to halt the slide.
In Japan, consumer sentiment, which has been quite low for years, improved in June but not by much and not a meaningful or trend-changing amount.
The German consumer inflation rate eased in June to just 2.2%, down from 2.4% in May. On an EU harmonised basis it fell to 2.5% from 2.8%. Their core inflation rate is a bit higher at 2.9% because the rise in food prices is now very low, and energy prices continue to retreat. They will be pleased with this progress and will be hoping it will be maintained.
The full EU CPI rate will be released tomorrow and that is expected to come in at 2.5% and a slight reduction from May.
In Australia, CoreLogic is reporting that dwelling values rose +0.7% nationally in June from May to be up +8.0% for the year. This rise is being led by a booming Perth market (+24% annually), although Brisbane (+16%) and Adelaide (+15%) are also strong contributors. Sydney's rises are about the average, but it is Melbourne's falls that offset the big gainers.
And staying in Australia, their 'Stage Three' tax cuts have come in to operation. They will benefit about 11 mln earners. The plan that has gone into effect was originally proposed by the Morrison Government, but the Albanese Government modified it so that those earning under AU$147,000 per year got more, those earning more than that level had their gains trimmed by half.
The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.48% and up +9 bps to start the Wall Street week. The key 2-10 yield curve inversion is has reduced to just -29 bps. Their 1-5 curve is also less inverted, now by -68 bps. And their 3 mth-10yr curve inversion is also less inverted at -89 bps. The Australian 10 year bond yield starts today at 4.47% and up +12 bps. The China 10 year bond rate is now at 2.23% and up +2 bps. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.71% and down -2 bps.
Wall Street has started its week with the S&P500 up +0.1% in its Monday session. Overnight European markets were also positive with London little-changed, Frankfurt up +0.3%, and Paris up +1.1%. Yesterday Tokyo ended its Monday session up a mere +0.1%. Hong Kong was on holiday and didn't trade. Shanghai ended up +0.9%. Singapore was up +0.2%. The ASX200 however ended down -0.2% in its Monday trade, but the NZX50 was up a creditable +0.6%.
The price of gold will start today up +US$3 from yesterday at US$2329/oz.
Oil prices are up +US$2 from this time yesterday at just on US$83/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is now US$86.50/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar starts today slightly softer from yesterday at just on 60.8 USc. Against the Aussie we are slightly softer too at 91.2 AUc. Against the euro we are down -30 bps at 56.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today -20 bps lower at 70.3.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$63,241 and up +2.6% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just on +/- 1.7%.
Daily exchange rates
Select chart tabs
The easiest place to stay up with event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
78 Comments
Hillary Clinton, responding to the supreme court’s immunity ruling, said it will be up to the American people to hold Donald Trump accountable in the November election.
Posting to X, Clinton said she agreed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion, in which she said that she had “fear for our democracy”.
Looks like stacking the supreme court is working for Trump.
I am utterly gobsmacked by the shortsighted stupidity of the SCOTUS. Clinton, who has almost no credibility with voters due to her corruption, won't carry much weight here, but she is correct. This is furthering the death knell of US democracy.
For centuries they have touted that one of the things that makes the US great is that NO MAN is above the law. The SCOTUS has thrown that into the bin. The military oath of allegiance which identifies "...all enemies, foreign and domestic...." should then place SCOTUS near the top of that list of domestic enemies.
Xi and Putin must think it is Christmas (or their equivalent)!
Justices ‘fear for democracy’ in dissent on Trump immunity
“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “Immune.”
“Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
This is the challenge facing the US. The strength of civilisations is in their institutions and many of those institutions rely on unwritten and unenforceable conventions. When someone comes along who openly lies, cheats, breaks the law, through their actions destroys those institutions, and manages to fool enough people they are doing it for the good of the country it is very hard to fight while playing by the rules. And yet if you fight dirty you also undermine the very institutions and conventions that civilisation relies on.
Let's recap that Trump is a convicted rapist, criminal and easily demonstrable liar. Yet there are still people in the US who knows this, absolutely despise those things and will vote for him because he's in their team.
We see similar attitudes on this forum where people will defend their political team regardless of the obvious contradiction with their values.
easy on the allegations.....
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-charges-conviction-guilty-verdict/
It looks, via their negligence and hubris, the Democrats have handed Trump another four years of presidency. The Americans might not always know who or what to vote for but they certainly know who or what not to vote for, and that is a weak embarrassment for a President and Biden has revealed that is what he is now, let alone another four years worth. Trump has already demonstrated virtually unbridled executive power in his previous term. Next time it will be exercised with scarcely any restraint whatever, especially if the Republicans win both houses. All of his civil, criminal and federal convictions go in the bin. Trump will be untouchable. Those who put up his $ millions of bonds will have something to think about.
If you're wanting to get into a legal distinction of convicted vs liable, criminal vs civil then I will accept convicted is not the legally correct word.
He was found liable for rape by a jury of his peers. This is not debatable. This is commonly (albeit legally not technically correct) understood to mean he was convicted of rape.
A jury agreed / found that he was a rapist. Does that make you feel better?
You dont seem to understand the legal system. He was the defendent in a defamation trial, so he had to prove that he didnt rape/sexually assault her. She didnt have to prove that he did (which she didnt do). In a defamation trial if you cant prove that something you said happened, happened (or in this case, didnt happen) you lose the defamation case. If she says he did, and he says he didnt, and there is no other evidence supporting either party, then juries tend to decide in favour of the person claiming to be victimised. But this is not "proof" that he raped anyone. It simply means that he couldnt prove he didnt.
The exact same thing happened in the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard case but in reverse. He sued her for defamation and won, because she couldnt prove in court that he assaulted her. This does not mean that he didnt assault her, and that he is innocent of domestic violence. It simply means that Heard couldnt prove it, so she lost the defamation case.
Of course I don't like him. He is a convicted criminal, a rapist and a outright liar. I also happen to know someone whose opinion I greatly respect who personally worked with him when he was involved in Miss World.
Is that the sort of person you like?
He isn't a laughable buffoon, he's a dangerous, dangerous man backed by dangerous interests.
Are you guys serious?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-…
Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, including non-consensual kissing or groping, by at least 25 women since the 1970s.[1][2] In June 2019, writer E. Jean Carroll alleged in New York magazine that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996. Two friends of Carroll stated that Carroll had previously confided in them about the incident. Trump called the allegation fiction and denied ever meeting Carroll, despite a photo of them together from 1987 being published by the magazine.[3][4][5] In November 2022, Carroll filed a suit against Trump for battery under the Adult Survivors Act. On May 9, 2023, a New York jury in a civil case found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation against Carroll, but found him not liable for rape. They awarded Carroll US$5 million in damages.[6] In July 2023, Judge Kaplan stated that the jury had actually found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word as they had ruled that Trump had forcibly and nonconsensually penetrated Carroll's vagina with his fingers.[7] New York state's definition at the time defined rape as solely nonconsensual penetration of the vagina by a penis.[8] A September 2023 partial summary judgment again found Trump liable for defaming Carroll. On January 26, 2024, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million in damages.[9]
Clearly nobody cares mate, the same way that nobody cares about what is going on in Gaza. The world is changing we now have a far right party getting in there in France and the far right is rising again in Germany, no surprises there. Do you want the bad news ? Trump is going to get into the Whitehouse again, how is this even possible right ?
Lots of people care about Trump and about Gaza. It is the fatalism and acceptance that makes it possible for these trends to continue. I reckon there is a good chance Trump can get in but you don't need to just shrug and accept it, you can call him out as a rapist and criminal. It's the indifference and acceptance that leads to despotism.
Zwifter you put out an interesting point; why the rise of the far right? Looking at a lot of the reports I've read i suspect it is because of immigration. The amount of immigration out of depressed areas or fleeing autocratic countries, and people feel the immigrants aren't assimilating into their new societies, but are rather retaining their own culture. So people are increasingly feeling threatened.
But then the high rates of immigration are also the long term consequences of foreign policies of Europe, the US and the UK!
ILLEGAL immigration is now a massive problem and it would be a problem here as well if those immigrants had access to decent boats instead of rubber dinghies. The UK has to stop them coming, end of story they are stuffing up the country. If you want to move to a country you apply, get the right visa or whatever the authorities require, you don't jump in a boat and make your problems someone else's problems.
Let's put this another way.
If someone approached your mother in a store and forcibly put their fingers into her vagina without her consent and a jury of your peers looked at the evidence and testimony and agreed that this thing had happened, would you call that person a rapist?
The Republicans know full well how to put opponents away and Biden has given them enough ammunition, explicitly visual too, to flail him in the election run up. Personally I would describe Trump as verging on megalomania and that characteristic is more than likely to surge out when he re-enters the Whitehouse. Amongst that there will be vengeance, lots of it. During Trump’s last term, the upheaval of covid, some feared the US might be heading for virtual civil war, community by community. That prospect looks like being rekindled afraid to say.
Unlike Biden, Trump wasnt allowed to claim he was just "an elderly man with a poor memory". The "threat to democracy" is the persecution of one political contender while giving the other a free pass.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2024/02/08/elderly-man-with-a-poo…
Biden wilfully returned the documents when he realised what had happened. Trump, well not so much. https://apnews.com/article/trump-justice-department-indictment-classifi….
You have to take all details into consideration.
Staying in China, regular readers will know that we have been watching the Chinese Government bond yields falling into record-low territory as investors continued to snap up these bonds amid pessimism about the domestic economy. Now their central bank has moved to halt the slide.
PBOC Signals Possible Government Bond Sales to Cool Market Rally
Bloomberg) -- The People’s Bank of China said it will borrow government bonds from primary dealers, a sign it may be contemplating selling securities to cool down a market rally.
Further indication why the US is not a competitive environment for producing goods: John Deere announces mass layoffs in Midwest amid production shift to Mexico. John Deere, the world’s largest seller of tractors and crop harvesters, has announced another wave of layoffs Friday, telling around 610 production staff at plants in Illinois and Iowa that they will be out of a job by the end of the summer. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/john-deer Link
Fortunately, the US industrial sector is still doing alright, so most workers with decent skills will quickly find work elsewhere.
Just goes to show how petty these large corporations can get. The cost saving from these layoffs at best are less than 1% of total profit reported by the corporation in 2023, assuming more workers will have to be hired in Mexico.
"Upholding shareholder value above all" is going to end disastrously for much of the West.
The criminal justice system in this country is beyond broken. Guy comes to court with loads of previous serious offences, been jailed multiple times, judge gives him bail, then blames Oranga Tamariki when he kills a child. Isn’t this stuff obvious - bail is something you give to reasonable people, not career criminals. If a guy like this comes up in court you take the opportunity to get him out of society as long as possible by giving him no bail and then the maximum sentence.
When it comes to crime I’m very extreme right, but even from an economic perspective surely it’s cheaper to keep these guys in prison than have them out creating problem children, stealing, selling drugs, ruining everyone’s lives, collecting the dole, taking up and destroying a perfectly good state house, etc. Has anyone ever done a proper economic assessment?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/toddler-killed-after-oranga-tamariki-gave…
We need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at first-time/entry-level crims (particularly when young) trying to reform them, give opportunities, educate etc.
However, once you are a recidivist, as per your example, you should simply be written off and we shouldn't shy away from the unpleasant fact that imprisonment in this case isn't about trying to get you to change your ways but simply keeping normal decent people safe from such freaks. This is what irritates me about the 'prison doesn't work' brigade, as they seem to overlook the fact that while you are in prison you can't commit criminal acts against the general public, and many crims are simply beyond earthly redemption and don't deserve any more chances.
Yeah it's a bit crap that this guy probably has had a terrible upbringing and all that. The die was cast long ago and probably in the first instance through no fault of his own. But that ultimately isn't my problem or yours, or at least shouldn't be - but it becomes my problem, or your problem, or somebody else's very quickly.
We should invest heavily now to try and ensure there are fewer such people "coming through the ranks" of criminality. But the ship has already sailed for existing recidivists. $100k a year or whatever it is, that's chump change to keep them away from civilised society.
Perhaps Singapore has a solution to offer?
"Singaporean law allows caning to be ordered for over 35 offences, including hostage-taking/kidnapping, robbery, gang robbery with murder, rioting, causing grievous hurt, drug abuse, vandalism, extortion, voyeurism, sexual abuse, molestation and unlawful possession of weapons. Caning is also a mandatory punishment for certain offences such as rape, drug trafficking,...and for foreigners who overstay by more than 90 days – a measure designed to deter illegal immigrants...The offender shall receive no more than 24 strokes of the cane on any one occasion...If the offender is under 18, he may receive up to 10 strokes of the cane..."
Further: Singapore Misuse of Drugs Act 1973, trafficking the following amounts of illicit drugs carries the mandatory death penalty: 30g of morphine, 15g of diamorphine (pure heroin), 500g of cannabis, 200g of cannabis resin, 1,000g of cannabis mixture, 30g of cocaine, and 250g of methamphetamine.
This case is 9 years old but I agree with you, I have a very low tolerance of crime.
You would be very surprised how little money is made available by the Govt. to support and encourage Maori into staying in education. Probably no more than a couple of State CEO salaries. Contrast this with the enormous benefits bill and cost to society of anti-social behaviour. Before one of the ACT Ultra's responds arguing we should all be treated equally, Maori, being more rurally based, in general face higher financial hurdles to attend tertiary institutions.
Iwi do support their rangatahi through education via financial grants. Not all are as large or well resourced as Tainui though and some haven't even settled yet. My point was it is a lot cheaper to invest in education than deal with anti-social behaviour and welfare later in life.
No iwi don't. Many iwi have promoted a lot of harm and stigma against lgbtqi youth, iwi have in many ways taken large amounts of cash, paid out a select hapu large amounts of millions and left most the people in the region poorer, destitute and ostracised. With zero grants available to most tangata whenua. At best iwi are unelected nepotistic selfish greedy rich looking out for themselves. Just take a look at Nga Tahu for instance. They literally stole taonga from other hapu and stole their IP from their work, took away their livelihoods and then took ownership & profits from their work too. There is no support from iwi other then them claiming more benefits for their management leadership class that they drop crumbs from the table for the poor to buy votes with. All iwi will remain unelected nepotistic and discriminatory because that is how they are allowed to remain and how the leadership likes it.
Forget tertiary institutions. They dont even attend school.
Regular attendance has fallen across all ethnicities since 2015. Māori learner attendance has fallen from 57% in 2015 to just 27% in 2022. Pacific learner attendance fell from 61% to 26% during that time (see Chart 2).
https://www.infometrics.co.nz/article/2022-11-school-attendance-an-uphi…
And then they claim its "racism" as to why they cant get jobs and end up on benefits.
Did it occur to you ask why this might be, rather than just using it as fuel for your bigotry?
The area's that had the largest fall's were low decile schools in Rural NZ. Perhaps they had to leave school to support family during Covid or Cyclone Gabrielle? The topic is on encouraging Maori to stay in education and how that is financially beneficial to the economy.
What bigotry? I'm just pointing out the facts. If they don't attend school, then they are not going to be going to University no matter how much money you throw at them. And I totally agree with you that encouraging Maori to stay in education is beneficial to the economy - they will be able to get jobs and not end up on benefits. Also my point.
Remember folks. Sending criminals to prison is racist. Uplifting children from their violent families is racist. Therefore, leaving criminals to kill their children is the preferred outcome. The Left is fighting tooth and nail to make sure this is the continued practice.
Sadly with whangai fostering the abuse and violence toward children only increases as many families have intergenerational violence and it is hard enough for some members to break free of the cycle. Many have tried to do so but have to cut ties, incredibly hard in tight knit communities and sadly children, grandchildren are still trapped and still experience abuse & cannot escape because whangai fostering and adoption is so heavily encouraged they are just put back into the same environment. I say this having in depth knowledge and experience of the whangai fostering systems and failures. It is not the culture it is the severe lack of common sense and lack of putting the child's safety foremost above local customary & family connections. Better to have a living child or one able to reach adulthood in a stable safe household then one that is either severely mentally damaged from abuse or dead.
If we took it on an economic basis there is significant cost to the ongoing reintroduction of children into abusive extended families & communities that tolerate such child and intimate partner abuse for their own cultural pride above the safety of the children themselves. If anything children need safety & basic needs first before the sense of belonging & higher levels of social attainment. You see there is a vast improvement in health and future opportunity in those later things when being able to be free of abuse and be alive to adulthood. But nah lets keep the abuse & rehousing kids with abusive families train going and see where it takes us. I am sure more deaths are aok with the people who encourage whangai fostering above child safety.
The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.48% and up +9 bps to start the Wall Street week. The key 2-10 yield curve inversion is has reduced to just -29 bps.
“The future is for no net housing growth ... So that’s an enormous change in the scope of the organisation and the scale of the activity that we're involved in every day.”
It would affect not only the construction sector but also Kāinga Ora staff, some of whom were working in urban development planning.
Wayne Brown was correct, he stated that KO where trying to influence city development along the future light rail line in Auckland, and basically told them to F Off.
It's a wealthier country with a much broader tax base. Was at Brisbane airport recently and literally thousands of FIFO workers waiting to fly out. They aren't obsessed with Green policies, they tax land, they tax housing (stamp duty) and have a meaningful capital gains tax.
If you're in QLD you also get a $1300 payment for your power bill, or $1672 if you are a pensioner/beneficiary.
And a 20% reduction in car registration fees, because unlike NZ, they havent turned all the roads into cycle lanes. Public transport fares have been cut to 50c a trip.
Pages 14-19 for the Brisbane cycle lane maps. Looks better than Auckland.
Riding in Brisbane - Helping you ride around Brisbane safely and confidently
And they can manage a decent integrated transport system:
Pretty much everywhere in Christchurch. A two lane road becomes a one lane road, as the cycle lane replaces the road. Almost every major arterial road in Christchurch is now down to one lane in parts, with proposals to reduce the remaining two lane roads down to one so they can become cycle lanes. I'm sick of it - all it has achieved is more congestion. Hardly anyone even uses the cycle lanes just to rub salt in to the wounds.
Again, please give us you expert opinion on what percentage of roads in New Zealand have a cycleway. You can break it down into urban and rural if you want.
You must know given your assertion above that every road has been turned into a cycleway. I'm giving you a chance here to come up with a more easily disprovable number than 100% as I assume this was just angry old facebooker exaggeration.
We await with bated breath.
You can legally cycle on all roads now, all shared paths and even some pedestrian spaces so you can threaten others. But sure you're the one missing out except all those disabled people who are Actually denied transport access and where cycleways put literal barriers in place to block disabled access to essential needs, housing, public spaces, education businesses and services.
Don't forget you could choose to walk instead on footpaths. In fact all means of transport are available and accessible to you. How ableist of you to deny others Any form of transport access. Lets see you live for years with critical medical conditions without transport access and see how long you survive for. I am guessing dead within the year considering how much you moan about having to have more cycleways to do anything & how much lockdown was a burden.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.