Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news that yesterdays revelation by RBNZ Governor Wheeler that the central bank has been intervening in the currency markets has seen our TWI fall by more than 100 bps since the beginning of the week.
And overnight, Sweden said it is doing the same. NZ and Sweden have joined Switzerland, Israel and Turkey who are trying this strategy, and may soon be joined by South Korea, Thailand and Australia.
A currency war looks like it is being started in the provinces, in response to the effects of massive QE major economies are using to reinvigorate their economies.
It's a delicate time for the international monetary system.
China’s exports unexpectedly grew faster in April even as shipments to America and Europe fell.
Analysts are increasingly concerned about the reliability of this data however, some even saying they are being inflated by "fake reports".
However, global equity markets seem unconcerned and and the euro rose overnight on that strong Chinese trade data and signs that Germany may escape a sharp slowdown.
The Dow marks new records daily and may do so again today.
And core hard commodity prices are rising; copper prices are up 2%, oil is rising too, as is the gold price. Soft commodity prices are taking a breather though.
Later this morning we get our Q1 unemployment data, and that is something that could well move our currency.
The NZ dollar starts today at 83.9 USc, 82.4 AUc and our TWI now stands at 77.4.
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3 Comments
Good grief. It appears the reality of the US shale (tight) oil fracking 'revolution' is finally dawning on a few people. And in Forbes of all places:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insead/2013/05/08/shale-oil-and-gas-the-con…
But wait, there is more:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1413571-growth-in-united-states-oil-pro…
''I believe North American oil growth is going to continue, but that the pace of growth peaked in 2012 and is going to slow considerably with each passing year. That slowing rate of growth is not going to be enough to offset demand growth elsewhere in the world. I base this belief on two things:
One is that the big increase in rigs that moved from natural gas to oil in 2012 created a one-time surge, and that the amount of oil production growth in 2012 is not repeatable as a result.
Two is that the high decline nature of these high decline tight oil wells make them a very fast moving treadmill to run against in order to grow production''.
so why are interest rates still set at emergency lows?
probably...because of the exchange rate....
AND ..they are like a possum caught in the headlights.
It's kinda clear that there are problems with the Global Monetary system..when Countries with chronic current acct. deficits can have high exchange rates..while a Countries with huge Trade surpluses ( like China )...can have weaker exchange rates.
The exchange Rate game is a biased game that favours the big players.
Interest Rates will probably stay lower for longer ... we will all borrow more ... and all the "rebalancing" problems the likes of Bill English were talking about back in 2008 ..will get worse.
it is a shame the RBNZ can't step back and see the big picture problems... and do something new and daring...
The current "paradigm" has been shown to be false ..by the GFC.. Central Banks have been a cause of many of the worlds problems...and not the saviour/rescuer that they would have us believe.
This whole currency wars..money printing to weaken exchange rates... game is in the realm of a childs game of monopoly. ... but having said that ...the longer term consequences might be anything but childish....
It's kinda ironic thst since the GFC...in our part of the world... the FIRE economy has got bigger ..and bigger...
there ain't been much rebalancing.... and there won't be ..until..........
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