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90 at 9: Westpac share halt ahead of tax case due today
October 8th, 2009
Click here for this morning’s video.
Alex Tarrant presents 90 at 9 in association with ASB. The ruling on Westpac’s ’structured finance transactions’ case at the High Court is due later this morning. Westpac shares were yesterday placed in a trading halt ahead of the announcement. If the court rules against Westpac it could see the bank have pay around NZ$1 billion back to the IRD, Denise McNabb reports. Here is the Sydney Morning Herald’s piece on the looming decision.
BNZ has already had to set aside a NZ$661 million provision after the High Court ruled against it, although BNZ is appealing the decision. ANZ, ASB and Rabobank await the judgement – they’re up next. All up it is estimated the banks owe around NZ$2.4 billion to the IRD from these transactions.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand dollar almost hit 74 US cents overnight, getting as high as 0.7397 US$ before falling away slightly.
Gold hit US$1,048.20 an ounce overnight, Reuters reported. The rise in Gold however is not so much a gold story as it is more a weak US dollar story.
Tags: Alex Tarrant, ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Gold, New Zealand dollar, NZ$, NZD, Rabobank, Westpac
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October 8th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Bernard – if you want to see how much of gold’s rise is due to a falling US$ and how much is due to actual demand then http://www.kitco.com has just put in a tracker.
Contrary to your comment, in the last few days (according to this measure) the fall in the US$ was responsible for rather less than half of the rise in gold.
The tracker is here:
http://www.kitco.com/kitco-gold-index.html#RT
October 8th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Looking through that site, the price of Gold has a lot more to it than you would think.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Yes indeed. This guff thats always trotted out ‘gold rose because the US$ fell’ is overly simplistic. One example; between March – July 2008 the US dollar index traded between 71-73 (ie 5% or more below where it sits now) , and gold traded at an average of about $930 during that period.
Now the US$ index is considerably higher (76-77) and yet gold is setting new highs ($1050). Gold rise is NOT simply a function of US$ weakness on that basis……..