Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that German magazine Der Spiegel reported Greek officials had threatened that Greece would pull out of the Euro zone unless Greece received a fresh German bailout.
Greek and German later officials later denied the euro pullout threat, but Greece has apparently begged for a new extension or change to its current bailout, arguing the debt is unserviceable.
Greece faces an inevitable debt restructuring, which would force German, French, British and Spanish banks to take big losses, potentially sparking another round of financial market instability. That would make it more difficult and expensive for the New Zealand government and its banks to roll over existing foreign debt and sell new debt.
See more here from David Chaston on the Greek threat.
Meanwhile, US jobs growth figures out on Friday night were better than expected, but the Greek turmoil took the shine off the market response. See more here at Bloomberg.
Elsewhere commodity prices continued to weaken. Silver prices crashed more than 25% last week. See our interactive chart of precious metals prices here.
Back in New Zealand, the Infratil-NZ Super fund-owned Shell announced it had cut its petrol price by 6 cents a litre this morning. Will others follow?
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is scheduled to release its 6 monthly Financial Stability Report on Wednesday, including an expected tightening of capital rules for rural lending that may make it more expensive for farmers to borrow. See more here from Gareth Vaughan on ANZ arguing for a phasing in of the rules.
Elsewhere, Rob Stock from the Sunday Star Times reported that the Australian government-owned medical insurer Medibank is in talks with New Zealand's biggest health insurer and mutually owned Southern Cross Healthcare. Southern Cross has rejected suggestions of a takeover. Medibank has suggested some sort of cooperation.
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30 Comments
my article of the week
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0507/1224296372123.html
It is only monday....!!!
Ireland is facing economic ruin.....mainly due to housing....makes me sick really....the gamblers (PIs) have done the same here and teenagers too young to vote yet will be picking up the bill......talk about moral hazard....
Funny thing when the right whingers and libertarians all demand freedom to do as they please that actions and bankrupcies that happen flow up to the macro level where the likes of I a simple PAYE will be asked to pay for it.....
regards
This is an interesting comment from that article;
To borrow so that senior civil servants like me can continue to enjoy salaries twice as much as our European counterparts makes no sense, macroeconomic or otherwise.
Thanks to our Higher Salaries Commission - I'm guessing that NZ civil servants are likely out paid relative to their Aussie counterparts as well.
Bernard, it would be an interesting piece of research to do!
ANZ to get its money back from Allied Farmers/Hanover's Clearwater properties - http://www.nzx.com/markets/NZSX/ALF/announcements/4979181/ALLIED-FARMER…
How come Wally suddenly believes everything real estate agents say?
"High Rise Apartment Blocks" have not been proposed in any Auckland suburbs.
3-4 stories is not 'high rise'.
Even if they were proposed "High Rise Apartment Blocks" don't automatically equal "Slums, Ghetto, Shantytown", just because they are different to a typical house in Malborough.
Read the discussion document Wally - this real estate agent is scaremongering and playing on the Kiwi terror of any housing typology that is not a free standing suburban house. He's doing the Bernard Hickey thing of making an outrageous statement to get publicity.
It doesn't matter how much they change bylaws - Bylaws don't control building form, District Plans do.
the guy from Bayleys is dreaming. The quote of the guy from the Property Council is much more realistic - 50% greenfields, 50% intensification
I reckon the only reason the Bayleys guy is talking up higher density housing is because limitting greenfields will push up urban land prices and he will gain very nicely thank you
I mean, how many people does he think wil be able to afford 400sq. m terrace houses and 140 sq. m apartments? In good areas the likely cost of these kinds of properties on the market would need to be circa $1.3 million and $700,000 respectively to stack up for developers
"Work on a new $200 million port south of Blenheim could be under way within months, with the Government set to announce a study today.
KiwiRail is backing the plan for a public-private partnership (PPP) terminal at Clifford Bay, replacing the Picton ferry terminal." stuff
Hmmmmmm......depending on the way the wind blows this could either be great for Picton real estate....or another kick in the goolies....!
For sure there will be happy days ahead for the hotel sector in the metropolis of Ward and boom times to come for the Ward store!
.A study showed there had been 47 crashes involving trucks between the Conway and Clarence rivers between July 2003 and September last year.
The stretch of road is a real no go for commercial operations and so between Blenheim and Seddon. Also, weather events can close the road for days.
Who will leave and who will move in to stay.....it was sposed to be the Queenstown at the top end....need to rename it first...how bout Kate Town....hmmmm that might confuse a few immigrants from Cape Town....no worries....Have to replant the lost native forests...some moron burned them down to grow grass in the 1800s.....total bloody failure.
So how come they are blowing millions on messing with the road over the Lions Back...seems pointless if the Ferry service goes to Clifford bay....is this a case of bureaucratic cockup....! The loot needed to be put into blasting a billion tons of rock from the hills above the mainroad of death south of Walter..try that stretch in a big rig mid winter in heavy rain and howling southerly....
wait a minute...don't plenty of people take the ferry cos they like the experience, sail through the sounds, then easy access to the wonders of the top of the south?????
Skip down the line, well you might as well take the plane to ChCh?
Sure benefits to freight to get it down the line quicker but passengers? Why not still keep Picton for the passenger ferries?
Its a nice little spot Picton. Take all the ferries out and it would die
Absolutely Matt – Picton/ Waikawa the gateways to the wonderful Marlborough Sounds will have a lot more to offer for tourists when heavy commercial activities disappear. Private enterprises are also interested to maintain/ extend the passenger link between Wellington and Picton.
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