Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news that Australia's population has now reached 23 million.
The milestone was reached today and that means there are 5 Aussies Kiwis for every Kiwi Aussie - which is a ratio that has been remarkably stable since the early 1990s.
Going the other way, Spain's population fell in 2012 for the first time in decades, as immigrants left the country amid a major economic crisis, official figures show.
The euro-zone's government debt-to-GDP ratio has reached an all-time high of 90.6% in March in data out overnight. Politics may ignore the data given the furore over the academic spreadsheet error that supported austerity policies, but markets are not seeing progress on how they are going to get out from under the crushing debt built up over decades of free-spending.
In the US, sales of previously owned homes fell slightly in March because listings were low, and prices took their biggest jump in more than seven years as the American housing market continued to bounce back from a deep slump.
Bellwether stock Caterpillar said its first-quarter net profit fell 45% and trimmed its full-year guidance because of a steep decline in mining-equipment sales.
In Hong Kong, home prices will fall as much as 25% after the government stepped up measures to curb an asset bubble and as banks raised mortgage rates, according to a respected analyst. Prices may fall as much as 10% in some areas this month as the measures bite. Rapid changes either way are a feature of densified housing markets.
Starting the week in northern hemisphere markets, oil and gold are trending slightly higher and the Dow is up.
The Kiwi dollar starts today at 84.2 USc, 82.0 AUc, and our TWI is at 77.9.
4 Comments
Population?
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-04-22/social-justice-and-solar-equity
Good backgrounder, noticeably lacking in rhetoric. Funny that.
Don't you mean DH there are 5 Aussies for every Kiwi? [Unless somehow we have taken up the option and annexed the entire West Island?)
gulp, you are right. fixed now
"Headlines proclaim that the real estate market is recovering. 'Best market in five years,' say the statistics. It’s a true statement. The latest recovery has taken ... one-family home sales back only to the levels of prior recessionary lows.
Had these measures fallen straight to current levels from 2006, people would be calling it a deep slump.
http://www.elliottwave.com/freeupdates/archives/2013/04/10/A...
At around 35,000 it is no better than any previous slumps-so- that $trillion a year is buying commodities and gov securities and an almighty shedload of trouble. The clever people are utterly lost in their fantasy world.
There is no recovery,the US is still deep in recession but umpty trillions deeper in debt just to make life interesting."
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