Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news the US dollar is on a strengthening burst.
It has pushed through the US$1 = ¥100 barrier this morning to a four year high and is rising against most currencies, although less so against the NZ dollar. In fact, the Aussie has fallen almost back to parity this morning.
It is not clear at this stage what is driving such a big change, but worries about whether Japan's Abenomics will work may be a big part of it. Or maybe it is anticipating Japanese trade data due out in a few hours.
Also part of it may be that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week dropped by 4,000 to the lowest level in nearly five-and-a-half years.
British Prime Minister Cameron has restated his country's strong opposition to the financial transactions tax working its way into law in the EU.
The Bank of England has left is benchmark interest rates unchanged in it s latest review, amid doubts about the strength of any recovery. It didn't change its QE settings either.
The Dow is holding on to its gains; most metals are down in market trade today, including gold, but agricultural commodities are up. However the latest USDA dairy price monitoring records big falls in prices for dairy commodities from this region. Milk powders fell about 10% in NZ$ terms since the last survey two weeks ago.
And later this afternoon morning the Prime Minister and the Auckland Mayor will be making a 'major announcement' about affordable housing in Auckland. It is understood that big new projects in both Hobsonville and Tamaki are getting kick started in a partnership between the two government agencies. We will have more on these plans later after the announcements.
The NZ dollar starts today at 83.8 USc, 83.0 AUc and our TWI now stands at 78.0. Basically any gains from the RBNZ reported intervention talk has vanished and lasted less than 48 hours at most.
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9 Comments
Re the governments Hobsonville Point project - speculators are onselling new homes bought off plan for around the mid $600,000 range for $800,000 plus now they are completed and investors have also purchased around 30% of the homes in that development - some individuals have purchased a portfolio of 3 or 4.
This needs investigation - this was supposed to be a government backed/Housing NZ developed project that would provide a degree of afffordability.
Housing NZ appear to be Aucklands biggest house builder at the moment - without all the homes they are building consent numbers would be even lower than they are. Is this NZ's version of China building ghost cities in order to stimulate activity?
There are always speculators and parasites wherever there is an opportunity to gain for no work. Though frankly listening to the "poor" who would jump onto the Green's housing policy their idea is they'll make money as well atthe exense of others. So really we have the ppl above with the capital to speculate and others who would do exactly the same if they had the capital, cant see there is much difference myself.
Really the only way that such a situation gets fixed is for the Govn/council to buy land en-mass and release it, en mass.
regards
So really we have the ppl above with the capital to speculate and others who would do exactly the same if they had the capital, cant see there is much difference myself.
Really? - but our depository institutions don't give the necessary capital to those unable to service it, a segment of socety which is quickly becoming the majority - so how can we test your hypothesis?
I guess I am not as positive with their falling/aging population and extremely high Government debt.
Japan car industry is not what it used to be either.....their supply chain is no longer mainly Japan based.
Any interest rate rise in Japan is bad news indeed.....
Cheers
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