Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news commodity prices are facing some headwinds, and that may get worse as trade prospects dim and the de-risking from China builds.
Today's full dairy auction brought lower prices from both last week's Pulse event, and the prior week's full event. But the dips were largely as expected and foreshadowed in the derivatives market. In the event, overall prices were -2.8% lower than the last full event, but with the NZD weaker, in NZD the decline was just -0.7%. Today's retreat doesn't interrupt the 2024 rising trend so it seems unlikely any farmgate payout forecasts will be adjusted because of this.
Demand from China was lighter today, but that may just because they have already built their requirements for their upcoming CNY holiday season.
US retail sales as monitored by their Redbook survey were a healthy +4.8% higher last week than the same week a year ago.
And November retail sales as reported by their official data were up +3.8% from the same month a year ago, the best gain of 2024. And that was driven by strong car sales. Business inventories remain at very manageable levels, so not building stress there.
Meanwhile US industrial production actually slipped in November, down -0.9% from a year ago, although there were signs of stabilising in the November month. Factory production actually rose, undermined by both mining and utility production.
For a second event in a row, demand for the latest US Treasury bond eased again. This 20 year auction was still well supported, just not as much as usual. The median yield at 4.62% was actually slightly higher than the 4.60% at the prior equivalent event a month ago. While that night seem insignificant, it reverses the recent pattern of falling yields at these Treasury fund-raising events.
Canada's November CPI inflation rate came in at 1.9%, pretty much as expected. Their central bank will be happy with that, because it allows them to continue to unwind their policy rate which is at 3.25% and next reviewed at the end of January.
Across the Pacific, we should note that Nissan and Honda have begun merger talks.
In China, new official data shows that capital flight by foreign investors reached a record level in November as the de-risking trend rose to a new urgency. And international airlines are also pulling back on their China routes.
One of the things to come out of the recent Central Economic Work Conference is that Chinese leaders reportedly agreed to raise their budget deficit to -4% of GDP in 2025, its highest on record. (For reference, the New Zealand equivalent is -2.4% of our GDP. In the US, it is -6.3%.) They are holding on to an economic growth target of around 5%.
Singapore's exports rose more than expected in November, up +3.4% and a better-than-expected comeback after their weak October result. Imports also rose, by +2.8% on the same basis.
And we should probably note that there was a general easing of commodity prices generally overnight, not just dairy products.
The UST 10yr yield is now at just on 4.39%, down -1 bp from this time yesterday. The key 2-10 yield curve is positive, now by +13 bps. Their 1-5 curve inversion is +1 bp positive. And their 3 mth-10yr curve is still positive at +6 bps. The Australian 10 year bond yield starts today at 4.34% and down -3 bps. The China 10 year bond rate is now at 1.74% and recovering +2 bps from yesterday. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.55% and unchanged.
Wall Street has opened its Tuesday session with a -0.4% slip on the S&P500. Overnight European markets were mixed with London down -0.8% but Paris up +0.1%. Yesterday, Tokyo closed down -0.2. Hong Kong closed down -0.5%. Shanghai closed down -0.7%. Singapore was down -0.6%. The ASX200 ended its Tuesday session up +0.8%, and the NZX50 ended with a +0.9% gain.
The price of gold will start today at US$2641/oz and down -US$10 from yesterday.
Oil prices are down -US$1 to be just on US$69.50/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is down almost -US$1 to be just over US$72.50.
The Kiwi dollar starts today just on 57.6 USc and down -20 bps from yesterday. Against the Aussie we are up +20 bps at 90.9 AUc. Against the euro we are also down -20 bps to 54.8 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 67.6 to be down -20 bps from yesterday at this time.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$106,952 and up less that +0.1% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at +/- 1.3%.
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Both Honda and Nissan are also discussing a plan to pull Mitsubishi into the party, which would be akin to how various Japanese electronics brands banded together — such as Konica Minolta, JVCKenwood, and others. Honda and Nissan were already working together to develop EV technology and software and had invited Mitsubishi to that party as well.
Honda has produced a couple of ok cars, many average cars and quite a few dogs. Nissan has produced some outstanding cars, many above average and only a couple of dogs. Unfortunately Nissan has suffered due to its uncomfortable relationship with Renault. The weird thing with Honda is - average cars, sensational small engines.
Nissan are hopeless and no surprises they are in trouble. For a period there, the Patrol and Pathfinder were peers with Landcruiser and Prado. Look at the Prado and Pathfinder today, Toyota stayed true to the offroad roots and the Prado has enormous wait lists while Pathfinder abandoned its heritage and became a bland derivative softroader with few redeeming features.
Honda, good engineering but terrible in most other respects.
Canada's "Trudeau in peril after spat over Trump threat sparks crisis"
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y49ym6em3o
Christchurch housing market following the big boys down the drain. Much smaller boom so much smaller crash but crash none-the-less.
Beware rookie investment advice where you always win with property.
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/some-of-them-will-be-selling-at-a-loss-m…
Not in SillyMans street... going to impact values however...
Hundreds of new or near new two-bedroom townhouses are flooding Christchurch’s property market and agents say there are far more for sale than there are buyers for them at the moment.
Overall there’s been a massive surge in properties for sale in Christchurch in the last few months, but the lift has seen one property type – two-bedroom townhouses – in oversupply.
There were more than 1700 properties for sale on OneRoof in Christchurch in mid-December and about 10% were two-bedroom townhouses.
Harcourts Gold salesperson Cameron Bailey said there was a definite oversupply of new or near new two-bedroom townhouses for sale in Christchurch.
But Harcourts Gold salesperson Cameron Bailey said there was actually a lot more than that for sale because often the listing might just be for one even though there were many more in the same development also up for grabs.
“Two-bedroom townhouses – there would be heaps and the thing is you are not even seeing half of them because they’ve got a block of six but they list one of them. So there’s one online or two online but there’s really eight for sale or six for sale because it’s kind of a hidden thing.”
Bailey said a lot of the townhouses for sale had been bought at the peak of the market or off-plans as investment properties and it did not make financial sense to hold onto them now.
Oh definitely, whateverMan will claim it's only this part of the market that is in trouble, everything else is hunky dory, nay positively cooking, with all rents achieving higher than average, all sales achieving higher than RV and CHCH being insulated form all other national and global factors.
I will give The Man who lives in Christchurch and who has years experience investing there, more credibility than some out of towner with no more experience than reading average data. I would say that The Man is probably a good operator and beats the average data handsomely, something that the average commenter can't stomach.
The shoeboxes are being built for future buyers/renters - many of whom will be recent migrants in their 30s moving here to work in low wage jobs with their spouse and children.
Even decent standalone houses in good Wellington and Hutt suburbs are being snapped up by developers to play Tetris with how many shoeboxes they can fit in a small piece of land. This snowballs as reluctant neighbours of such developments are compelled to sell their standalone houses, which are again bought to build yet more shoeboxes.
Those multistorey townhouses have turned into a nightmare. They worked on the insulation and then forgot about the ventilation. With them all joined together you just killed the ventilation and the summer temps in them are going over 50C if the news on TV is anything to go by.
The Government made sweeping announcements yesterday to open the floodgates to more unskilled migration to NZ in a desperate attempt to save the Ponzi.
The policy changes include removing median wage thresholds and extending visa term for low skilled occupations. Worst is that businesses will no longer have to prove that they tried to hire a welfare recipient for an unskilled job before sponsoring a migrant.
In short, NACT are going even harder on scraping at the bottom of the barrel than the previous lot and have completely given up on the promise to raise productivity and create more prosperity for Kiwis.
Also a very bad move in the middle of the ongoing fiscal nightmare.
Every migrant and their family members on a 2-year visa are eligible for universal public healthcare in NZ. Those earning as low as 55k can also bring their children and access subsidised daycare and free schooling.
At that point, migrants become net users of our tax system.
Are they even trying to think rationally here?
It is frustrating. Professional politicians are hopeless at running the country and now we've had two business managers try it and they're hopeless too. and all of them would like us to agree to extend their time at the trough. The issue for us, the people is determining who would make suitable representatives.
Not sure whether or not you are aware, I am pushing for an abolishment of central government with the formation of 4 states. A very small federal set up of 1 person (myself) to oversee operations. You will find that this country will then run smoothly and none of you will have anything to complain about.
I wasn't aware the Grinch had a comedian pal.
You forgot the #sarc tag Frank.
While politicians and senior business managers can't be trusted and are hopeless in government, a smaller country is really just less viable and unsustainable. NZ as it is struggles mightily. Don't misunderstand I'm not suggesting we should become a state of Aussie or some other country, just that the smaller we are the harder it is to survive
Demographics will take time to play out...and as long as there are credit worthy willing to borrow to purchase (numbers not important, total borrowing the determining factor) then the lending can occur...the issue then becomes can the non credit worthy support the payments?...i guess if you cram enough in and/or provide enough subsidies then they can, until the whole system falls over.
Employers will need to advertise with MSD and be able to demonstrate they considered New Zealanders in good faith, but this will be changed to a declaration-based model
So much in NZ relies on an honesty based system with no real oversight or checks by anyone. This yet another example. It's inserted to delude that there are some handbrakes when it's just BS.
NZ is now wide open.
Where's the uproar?
This will 100% help the existing Indian and Chinese business immigrants bring in more of their compatriots. This is National's plan.
I can see racially motivated attacks on immigrants increasing. No lessons learned from immigration policies from other countries that have been through this. Useless.
At this point it's presumably:
a) A desperate means to prop up the housing market and placate investors. Terribly presumptive of me I know, but if I take a stroll around the streets near my house in Chch there are numerous two bedroom townhouse developments. Almost all of them seem to be inhabited by immigrant families (emphasis on the plural ... e.g. the old two bedder my wife and I rented when we first got married now has about 8 people living in it, I know as I had to collect some post and got chatting to them). I wonder how shagged the market would be without these new arrivals?
b) A means of "throwing a bone" to the insufferable business lobby set who fund NACT (I should know, I am cursed with spending my life in the company of these people when I should have just bought and held Bitcoin instead, and then I'd never need to soil myself in their company). Just the other day I had to attend some dreary function where the primary topic of conversation was how damaging the minimum wage is, and how we need to make it easier to open up the floodgates to "skilled labour" - i.e. vape shop assistants and cut-rate tradies. . These are all people almost immune to the effects of their agenda, as they send their kids to private schools, they go to private hospitals, they live in areas the new immigrants could never afford - all they see are the benefits (to their bottom line)
"NACT are going even harder on scraping at the bottom of the barrel"
"Worst is that businesses will no longer have to prove that they tried to hire a welfare recipient for an unskilled job before sponsoring a migrant."
Make up your mind, which one is it, the bottom of the barrel or the migrant ? Can't be both.
Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Buckingham Palace, New York the Empire State building, but tourists will flock from afar to Christchurch to witness the splendour of a Shosha vape shop on every corner, and a Thirsty Liquor outlet next door. We are building the new Babylon, one takeaway shop at a time.
"10 year bond yields now higher than they were in the 2022 LDI crisis. Only this time the UK is paying a huge premium compared to other markets like Germany. Where is the outrage from @BBC,@bankofengland and MPs? Or were they motivated by something else in 2022?"
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