Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news you may have "sold in May and gone away" after the past week's swoon.
Then you would have missed the overnight equity recovery where some investors were determined to "buy the dips". Wall Street is making the Friday -1.3% dump back, and more - and ignoring the huge -3.3% retreat in Tokyo earlier. The Tokyo drop was said to be triggered by rising short term interest rates in the US, so the question is, why is Wall Street rising now? Mainly it in those sectors that benefit from the reflation trade.
In the US the Chicago Fed's national activity index reported a broad gain in May with all components rising - except personal spending which took a breather. Sales, production and employment categories all rose and reversing the April declines.
In Taiwan, their export order growth in May tailed off a bit from its +43% raging increase in April. The May rise is 'only' +35% year-on-year (or up +38% from May 2019).
Australian retail sales rose less than expected in May. The snap lockdown in Melbourne in that month kept things restrained. A national rise of +0.5% from April was expected but it came in at +0.1%. However, the -1.5% fall in Victoria was offset by +1.5% rises in Queensland and Western Australia. Separate NSW data wasn't released. Year-on-year the national retail sales were +7.4% higher than for May 2020. Compared with May 2019 the May 2021 sales are 13.6% higher.
And staying in Australia, the return of Barnaby Joyce as deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Country/National Party is a win for coal miners and the fossil fuel industry generally. It will be interesting to see how Prime Minister Scott Morrison squares his commitments at the G7 on limiting GHG emissions with his new coalition partner's stance. An early election in Australia is one option. In any event, the climate policy wars are likely to heat up across the ditch for a while with this rearguard activity.
Wall Street has started their week on a positive note, up +1.4% in afternoon trade. Overnight, European markets set the tone with a +0.6% rise on most exchanges, except Frankfurt which was up +1.0%. Yesterday the very large Tokyo market turned in a shocker, down -3.3%. Hong Kong was down -1.1%. But Shanghai managed to hold its own (+0.1%). The ASX200 ended with its own awful -1.8% drop while the NZX50 Capital Index ended with a -0.4% slippage.
The UST 10yr yield starts today up +4 bps at 1.48%. The US 2-10 rate curve is steeper at +123 bps. Their 1-5 curve is also unchanged at +80 bps, while their 3m-10 year curve is steeper at +144 bps. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate starts today at 1.54% and a +3 bps recovery. The China Govt ten year bond is down -3 bps at 3.12%. And the New Zealand Govt ten year is now at 1.75% and that is down -5 bps.
The price of gold starts at US$1784/oz which is up +US$20/oz from this time yesterday.
Oil prices are a lot stronger in the US at just on US$73/bbl which is a +US$2 daily rise, while the international Brent price is just on US$74/bbl which is a +US$1.50 gain.
The Kiwi dollar opens today back up at 70 USc and a full +¾c overnight recovery. Against the Australian dollar we are firmish at 92.8 AUc. Against the euro we are also firmer at 58.7 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at 72.4 and where it was at on Friday.
The bitcoin price is now at US$32,463 and down another -6.0% from this time yesterday. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been extreme at +/- 6.9%. In China, their central bank has told banks and Alipay to be more aggressive in cracking down on crypto currencies.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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78 Comments
Australia is in trouble; it's not just Joyce (and politicians being lured away from wives by secretaries is as old a power itself; Confessions of a muckraker and Washington merry-go-round are great reads)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/796752.Confessions_of_a_Muckraker_
https://auislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/pearson%3A1
But Australia's big problem is its energy system, and it's one reason not to envy them. Compounding their problem is the king of antiquated thinking we see here too, here's a comment from yesterday morning:
"If it was being done well, energy prices would be declining".
Energy underwrites money, by being essential for doing work, without which nothing is done. So an increase in net energy-intensity (less effort needing put in for more effort back in return) is the only way for energy to 'become cheaper'. (efficiencies being a temporary expedient).
Thus, as we go down the EROEI ladder, energy - if properly valued, which our recent eye-watering debt-issuance outpouring tells us it is not - will get 'more expensive'. Get used to it. Cost is no longer the valid measure when we're discussing energy.
Australia is addicted to the wrong generation-source, is changing late and will be challenged. They have good solar, some good wind, but their cities are big heat-engines now; bigger than the pending nightmare that is Auckland. Interesting they are doing pumped hydro:
https://www.energy.gov.au/government-priorities/energy-supply/pumped-hy…
But Joyce resembles a handbrake, not an accelerator and they - like us - have to build the future before the present leaves them; they'll live to regret any delay.
I am not sure why their energy system is a big problem? They have one of the world's highest solar penetrations per house (which comes with its own voltage management issues) and have nuclear as well?
I take your point on the true cost of power being paid forward (as with a few other things, climate and debt as a start) but the current thinking on remedy (inflation) is going to mean extreme valuation disruptions. I don't see inflation being allowed to work while the central banks stay on their communist manifesto on central planning. Once they are finally convinced that communism does not work then markets might again get to discover price.
PDK you miss the human psychology component;"If it was being done well, energy prices would be declining" I'm picking the Aussie structure (I don't know) is the same as ours, all private, profit making entities. I know ours are SOEs but they still are structured to make profits and are required to pay the Government significant dividends. Greed will ensure that power prices will not drop significantly, no matter how efficiently it is generated. Indeed increased dependence on power only strengthens this mentality because the customer base are effectively captive. And as long as Governments do not regulate on power prices there will be little to no motivation to be efficient or truly green.
Australia is in the box seat going forwards, dont know what your talking about. They just dig highly sought after minerals out of the ground. The problem is they just shot themselves in the foot when Morrison opened his big mouth thinking that Australia is far more important than it is. Pretty important not to let your ego get in the way of reality, Australia needs China in a big way.
Your 'economy' had hit the Limits to Growth all on its own. No need for help from the Greens. It did it by growing exponentially and not being able to decouple itself from physical activity (real work done to real stuff). Own goal.
Ironically, it's collective demand that is driving that coal-importing, along with the flawed, short-term, selfish approach that is 'cheapest option first'. Let's stay with facts, eh? We could go without Huntly coal, indeed without Huntly at all - by simple decision. But there would be howls from all those so-inconvenienced I-demand-no-limits-on-me types; the same ones blaming someone else for the importing......
Spin and prejudice - common bedfellows.
No the irony is shutting down the gas and coal sector and then importing dirty coal (transported from Indonesia) to power the grid. We could go without Huntly? No, Huntly is required for the stability and safety of the grid, you can choose how much it produces and turn that down but you cannot decommission it without similar generation (not wind farms or solar) in the North Island.
I am not interested in wearing clothes made of flax and starving to death so I will see what human innovation can do to manage the resources we have left to better and better effect.
Haha! Look at all the Chicken Little's running out and yelling "The Sky is Falling" at the first sign of rain. I've never been more bullish.
I'm holding out to buy more under 20k. Possibly down to 18k if it gets that low. The journey to a 6-figure Bitcoin is taking longer than I thought, but it does not change the fact that it will get there. My adjusted prediction is it will now happen sometime in Nov/Dec. Having said that I think my previous ATH prediction of 350k is also off and starting to look too conservative. When BTC recovers from this dump with two of the most reliable crash signals in trading flashing (the 50/200 death cross, and a HUGE head and shoulders pattern), people are going to realise again that the godfather of blockchain is nothing like we've ever seen before in the history of mankind. The parabolic pump from that will be face-melting.
While we wait for that, here's a link to an ATM that doesn't output cash, but only inputs it. I'm sure you no-coiners will enjoy. :)
The death cross is a technical chart pattern indicating the potential for a major selloff and has proven to be a reliable predictor of some of the most severe bear markets of the past century, including 1929, 1938, 1974, and 2008. - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deathcross.asp
Bearish: China is cracking down on miners and 50% of BTC hash power is lost to Xinxang.
Bullish: El Salvador, Paraguay drafting BTC legislation, 3T of miners moving to Maryland, Saylor adding 1.5B to MC, and BTC mining difficulty is about to take a huge dive in 8 Days and 20 Hours (when the remaining miners come back online things are going to go boom).
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
- HEB 11:1
This isn't faith, the positive things happening right now to BTC are openly on display for everyone to see and vastly outweigh the negative. If BTC turns a death cross into a golden cross all bets are off and the price will go absolutely bonkers.
No need for us to stay on the sidelines. Once a winner emerges, we'll simply convert our fiat or other assets into it if it's more convenient. Or get paid in it.
Right now you're in the business of picking winners. The idea that people not investing in bitcoin now will be left on the sidelines is incompatible with the idea that bitcoin will become a regular currency.
Totally agree. And by that stage the transformation will be complete.
In the meantime, with only 0.28 BTC (28,000,000 SATS) putting you in the top 1% of future hodlers there's a relatively low risk opportunity to get Rothschild rich though.
Sure 1 Bitcoin =1 Bitcoin but unless its tied to Fiat its actually worthless. It is not a stand alone currency. Ask yourself the question, what if a new digital currency emerges that is NOT backwardly compatible with Bitcoin. They just need to introduce a new currency that breaks the link and Bitcoin will have to stand on it own. Not possible ? sure it is, does iPhone Apps work on your Samsung ? Anything new developed has the advantage of making something old incompatible, happens all the time.
Sure it is. The reason you want to dollar cost average your BTC acquisitions is that you think (speculate) that in the long term they will be worth more. The essential features of a currency are: store of value; medium of exchange; unit of account. High volatility is contrary to all three.
The reason you want to dollar cost average your BTC acquisitions is that you think (speculate) that in the long term they will be worth more.
You missed the point. DCA'ing is not "speculation" because you're trading off potential gains by allocating capital over time. Arguably, DCA'ing is anti-speculation. Furthermore, "speculation" is not about thinking that an asset rises in value over the long term. Speculation is also betting against an asset rising over time.
Think laterally.
I'd say the speculation relates to the target of investment, not the strategy of investing. If I want to buy wheat futures, that's still speculation regardless of whether I buy a lump today or DCA over the next few months.
Not that I have a problem with people speculating - all investments are somewhere on the speculation spectrum. But it's reasonable to admit bitcoin is pretty far along that spectrum...
Not that I have a problem with people speculating - all investments are somewhere on the speculation spectrum. But it's reasonable to admit bitcoin is pretty far along that spectrum...
It's not "reasonable" without objective benchmarks. BTC is a volatile asset because of the variance in its price movements over time. Arguably, it's not speculative if you look at its price movement over time.
It's speculative as the entire investment case is that you hope it will rise in value over time. At the other end of the spectrum, if I buy a government bond I know how much I'll receive and when, and the date my principal will be returned, all being well. Dividend paying shares and property are somewhere in between.
Perhaps we have different conceptions of speculative.
You’re trying to compare a completely new asset class with the existing ones. Seems foolish to me.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/06/21/why-this-expert-says-the-sec-shou…
Huh? Of course you can compare new things to existing things - it's how we put them in context and understand them.
If I was in bitcoin I'd just wear the speculator badge and own it - it's clearly what's going on. I used to be an advantage gambler and have stakes in some fairly risky companies so I don't see that as a problem. This fragility around embracing the term makes me suspicious - are you just trying to kid us or also kidding yourselves?
Absolutely. That's why it's a spectrum not black/white - every investment has risks. But, I'm 100% certain that a government bond in a stable government is less speculative than an investment in bitcoin. The flip side of the coin is no investor in stable government bonds has a chance of doubling their money. You can't have it both ways.
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/
For the 421st time apparently.
I don't have a horse in this race but BTC has some clear advantages over gold in the speed of transactions and in the clarity of title to the asset. What I see is it becoming a favourite for funds to use a risk asset as there is nothing else in the market with this volume and tradability.
The main issue with BTC is the fraud it is exposed to via its settlement mechanic. Being able to buy prioritise access to the blockchain allows forward buying bots to beat the market by watching incoming trades and through paying more for settlement get in before those trades to buy or sell for effect. https://www.investopedia.com/news/bots-drove-bitcoins-150to1000-rise-20…
I disagree with the fraud part.
The liquid bitcoin that trades back and forth, which is the primary price driver, is all held on exchanges that have instant settlement and open order books just like any other exchange. What you are referencing is the blockchain pricing mechanism, where if I want to sent bitcoin from one of my wallets to your wallet say, I will put in a price per unit of data to send it to you. This depends on how fast I want the transaction to confirm. Ergo, the free market method is that I will pay for the service that I want, if i want it fast I will pay a lot and jump to the top of the line.
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,24h,fee
As you can see, there have been a lot of people wanting transactions moved asap over the last 24 hours with this drop, which is why the fee has gone up. But also over the last few weeks the memepool has been empty. I sent one last night at 10 sat/vbit and it went through within the hour :)
That article obviously has not got with the times, back in 2013/2014 it really was an nascent industry ripe for manipulation, even up into 2017. But it is significantly more mature now, but still not as much as the larger markets obviously. There are plenty of regulated exchanges and government compliant on and off ramps into Bitcoin.
You cant watch the blockchain for big transactions coming in then front run it, because to do so you have to pay a higher fee and also know what the intention of that transfer is.
In saying that, we do have a few whale tracking twitter accounts that track large transactions, so you could place a trade on an exchange to try and front run what you think might be coming, but you never know when, or if they will sell.
Another eg is Microstrategy and their $500m purchase this last week, we knew it was happening but it didnt affect price as he buys in small chunks, where as traditionally you would have thought that should have pushed the price up. (or maybe it was and now that he is done we are dumping....)
Adoption is happening faster than the internet was.
https://twitter.com/raoulgmi/status/1407100487690752000?s=21
It might be something to do with the increasing realisation of the role that bona-fide fraudulent enterprise Tether has played in boosting the BTC price. Billions of $ worth of BTC purchases, enabled by non-existent collateral. Their are so many rubes in the crypto space... Old folks tend to be conned by respectable-looking dudes in suits using financial buzzwords they don't fully understand, slightly younger folk are fleeced by meme-savvy online 'entrepeneurs' using tech buzzwords they don't fully understand.
I think you are uninformed about what is brewing amongst institutional investors trying to get onboard. But by all means, sit on the sidelines and miss the most exciting new asset class for 150 years. Bitcoin doesn’t care.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/06/21/why-this-expert-says-the-sec-shou…
Overnight in Sweden , the PM lost a confidence vote, a historical first, brought to a head over the past week by a proposal to abolish rent controls on newly built property. Sweden facing falling home ownership rates and a rental crisis amid rocketing house prices appears headed for another election. There are always motels I guess.
We live in strange times when 'woke' politicians are applauded for tinkering with the welfare of the 'marginalised' minority, while failing to deal with the larger issues facing the masses.
Key may have had ill-intentions on housing and immigration but Jacinda's ineptitude (or indifference to the plight of the masses) on those issues are equally to blame.
Let's be having the discussion:
How many second-homes stand empty 99% of the year? Palatial, many of them.
We don't have a housing crisis, we have a distribution crisis. This is completely a case of the rich getting richer and the poor getting the picture.
But a suggestion of spreading it around more evenly would be castigated - that's the dratted communism, grrr, hissss
lol yes communism has been such a glowing success story why can't we just repeat those mistakes instead of making new ones?
I would say that although the woke are not always the best decision makers, at least they are making a big difference to our culture. In my lifetime people and their feelings have never been considered more in decision making. I see this as a good thing.
Maybe we should just repeat the post-war decades' success story of creating a supply of affordable housing for today's older generations, and the highest rate of home ownership we achieved. They left quite a beneficial legacy for those who followed...would've been good if today's older generations had kept that up.
Where will it end? Same as the OE days in London. 44 people in a 3 bed 1 bath. 4 in each bedroom, 16 in the lounge, 4 in the hallway, and 12 in the attic.
By memory 40 pounds got you a single stretcher in the attic. 30 pounds a top or bottom bunk in one of the other rooms. Each was surrounded by a shower curtain for privacy and had a footlocker at the end to store belongings.
As we progress to being a developing country - through our continual process of rewarding sitting on assets instead of hard work - one of the next housing forms we'll start to see become more common is bedspacers. Beds in dorms, and when that's too expensive, just the night shift or day shift in a shared bed space.
Gotta keep importing people to keep wages down, and keep constraining supply and subsidising prices.
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