TWI at record level

Weak US jobs growth and worries about Japan's aggressive new monetary policy sees the NZD end the week strongly

Currencies

Weak US jobs growth and worries about Japan's aggressive new monetary policy sees the NZD end the week strongly

6th Apr 13, 11:19am by David Chaston

The kiwi dollar has ended the week sharply higher and closed with the TWI at a record level.

The jump was propelled by two overnight events.

Firstly, US non-farm payrolls grew in March by a level below every expert's estimate. The surprise knocked New York equity markets.

Payrolls grew by just 88,000, the smallest gain in nine months after a revised 268,000 February increase, the US Labor Department data showed. The US unemployment rate fell however to 7.6% from 7.7% as their participation rate fell.

That pushed the NZ dollar up to end the week at NZ$1 = US$0.8433.

At the same time, markets are absorbing just how massive the Japanese reflation plan is - basically doubling their money supply in two years.

The yen continued to weaken, ending the week at 82.25 yen to the NZ dollar, a level it has not been at since June 2008, almost five years ago.

And finally these events have hurt the Aussie dollar more than the Kiwi dollar and we have risen against them. We ended the week at NZ$1 = AU$0.8120, its highest level in four weeks.

These three shifts have left our TWI at 77.68, a record high.

Gold recovered some of its earlier losses ending the week in New York at US$1,580/oz.

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2 Comments

by Henry_Tull | 6th Apr 13, 7:51pm 1365231071

This says more about what the others are doing than it does us. We are thinking getting out our book on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

One of our winter projects is wire a few things up and make sense of the numbers that wizz round on a daily basis when season full on..

We have had some locals come out and run the ruler over things. HOWEVER one chap is happy to do design work here and backend somewhere else all open book. Unless we had seen WE WOULD NOT BELIEVE whats going on....

http://www.virtualcoworker.com/

save 80% they say.

by Vera Fayed | 7th Apr 13, 10:21am 1365286862

Kimy: Japan certainly has not been suffering property deflation, at least not in the last decade. The massive bubble burst that happened was nearly quarter of a century ago. History. Looking at Tokyo condominium prices over the last 8 years, prices rose in 23 quarters and fell in 8 quarters. Since 2005 prices are up over 25% nominally and more in overall deflation adjusted prices.

With BoJ embarking on a massive QE program in a determined attempt to raise prices the consensus seems to be that prices will hold or rise, despite a falling population. Have you ever lived there and seen for yourself how few sqare metres per person there are there? The market will hold up because as the population falls the square metre occupancy per person will increase.