Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that US consumer confidence improved to a five month high, helping the Dow to recover from lows.
Also, the Chicago ISM Business Barometer, which surveys purchasing managers, was better than expected in November.
However, US existing house prices were weak in November. The S&P Case Shiller index showed prices rose just 0.6% in September from a year ago, the slowest gain in 8 months.
Across the Tasman, Australian GDP for the September quarter is due to be reported later today and is expected to have risen between 0.2% and 0.5% for the quarter, which is better than expectations earlier in the week that it may have actually contracted.
Australia is New Zealand's largest trading partner and its growth throughout the Global Financial Crisis has helped soften the blow for New Zealand. But Australia's heavily indebted household sector is now coming under pressure as the Reserve Bank there and their banks raise interest rates.
Meanwhile in Europe, the Irish bailout and the German compromise on haircuts for bank bond holders has failed to stop contagion in the European system. Worries are now spreading to Italy and France, which both have high government debt.
Portugese and Spanish bond yields rose to fresh records vs German bond yields as investors worry about the risk that heavily indebted and slow growing economies on the periphery of the Euro zone may have to default and restructure debt, which would wipe out Europe's banks.
Credit default swaps for such debt rose to record highs. The euro fell to a 10 week low and briefly fell below 1.30 to the dollar.
The New Zealand dollar was flat just above 74 USc.
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22 Comments
Here in Noddy the building sector is rubbing away the mists of recovery from its eyes and seeing a new normal of activity somewhere close to what was going on in the pre bubble era....retail xmas activity will be 'muted' and the post xmas sales will give the advertising sector some happy months....the govt will weigh up the budget details and opt for more of the same old wait and hope wrapped up in promises and BS that will be given a layer of icing from a constant spewing out of business happy happy survey results and general media spin about life returning to something better if people can only see past the recession and endless gloom....
The schoolgirl found a snake in her schoolbag across the ditch....property is the snake in the aussie economy!
"AUSTRALIA'S banks and insurers would find the fallout following a 30 per cent tumble in house prices ''manageable'', Fitch Ratings said yesterday, as it released partial results of a stress test."
the age.com
You're strange, Wolly!
Anyway here's a NZ real estate story for today to munch on:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10691231
Well Wolly may be strange but I wouldn't assess him that way, in fact I think he is on the money.
I don't actually bother with Xmas Wolly, it saves a lot of trouble. I sit back and laugh at all the people running around stressed to the max trying to find presents to buy with money they don't have. Then all the family fights when family that don't get on are forced to try and be civil to each other for a day.
I figured out the thing about expensive toys lying around unused years ago. When buying gifts for a child I go to the $2 shop and buy 5 or 10 things. Chances are they will love one of these cheap knick knacks more than a $150 remote control car or the like.
Coppers call it the murder season Scarfie...and I too head for the remote wilderness...best time to throw money away on xmas stuff is in the sales that follow...had great fun in london post xmas...wonderful bargains....best toy for boys is something with wheels they can up their motor skills on...and for girls...the same thing.....if you live by the beach...go get a huge slab of polystyrene for each kid..show them how to heat shape their own body board and make sure they can swim and obey the surf rules.
And here's our version highlighting that the glut is now over a year's worth
http://www.interest.co.nz/news/real-estate-asking-prices-fall-october-s…
cheers
Bernard
If you wondered where David Hillary went to after SCF went down the gurgler well,want no more:
http://www.lostsoulblog.com/2010/12/thinking-unthinkable-in-europe.html
PM wants to be stuck on a deserted island with Paula Bennett
Prime Minister John Key gave honest, sometimes painfully so, answers in an online chat today. Answering questions from people on the stuff website today, he said his favourite television shows were the Biggest Loser, Desperate Housewives, and Grey's Anatomy.
His music ranged from Taylor Swift to Stan Walker -- though his son downloaded it for him. Mr Key was asked about everything from abortion, drugs, gangs, the national cycleway, the cost of living, to what he was having for lunch -- a cheese toastie -- during the hour-long chat.
Many questions were more personal such as what he was doing for Christmas and what presents he wanted -- a Big Bertha golf driver and a Gulfstream V business jet aircraft, "but I'm not so hopeful about that one".
Christmas was normally with relatives in Christchurch eating crayfish and turkey, but this year his family was going to England for his niece's wedding, then to Hawaii.
Another question was what three possessions were most vital, the answer; his smartphone, running shoes and eftpos card. And which MP would he prefer to be stuck on a desert island with.
"It'd have to be someone from our side, because I wouldn't want to spend time with the other lot! "We'll go with Paula Bennett, because I can be totally confident she would do the talking, and I'd just have to do the listening."
On more serious matters Mr Key said he thought the All Blacks would win the World Cup; that he supported a mixed purchase age for alcohol -- 18 in a licensed premise, and 20 in an off-license; Someone called Tina asked what drove Mr Key to be a politician.
He said to make a difference to the country and its people but also: "it was the fascination of politics I had at a very young age, watching PMs of the day engage with the issues that confronted NZ".
And his advice for any wannabe PMs? That they get out of life what they put in and "you never know what might happen in the big city. It worked for me!"
Asked what he would consider doing in future he ruled out following former Labour PM Helen Clark into a United Nations job. "I'm likely to have some engagement in the commercial world. I have no interest in going to the United Nations, or holding any other elected positions."
Stuck on a desert island with Paul Bennett : Hubba bubba yummy gummy : Ohhhhhh , that'd be great , she's hot ......... Got me all gooey & excited ... ...... Wonder if she'd give me a bennefit if I fell out of a coconut palm , and couldn't , ahem , "do my job " anymore ?
So let me see if I get this.....
There I was stuck on a desert island.... the only thing I had for company was my girl Friday.....I named her Paula for my own benefit....she was a strapping girl...like something I'd seen on the slab in Greys Anatomy...I think it was the blimp episode...anyways she talked way too much and made my ears burn....I don't know if it was the sun or what but I'd look around and her mouth seemed to move incessantly ......oh I tried drowning her out with the little boom box I'd recovered from the wreckage ...it had a Stan Walker cd still in it....I'd look at Paula and think well there's one that got away on you.....
Day three she was still talking..so I drifted off somewhere in my mind to a happy place where I had my eftpos card (ca....ching) I could get a cheese toastie...a bottle from the off license..... my running shoes (for when it declined) and Big Bertha my favourite driver( so I could smash her head in just to stop the talking).......I had to shake myself back into some sort of reality..... I realised what was happening to me................I was starting to relate...... and now I knew why she was there........ why Stan was on the box....it all made sense
Somehow I'd make my way back to civilization and be the Prime Minister I could have been not the slippery weasel I had become.........
........... Dude ! You're on a desert island , alone with Paula Bennefit ............ How hot is that ! ............. And you want to escape ? ........... Madness , pure madness ....
.... Relax , Mistress Paula will massage a little palm oil into your flagging coconuts : Enjoy !
Burwood, Avondale, Avonside, Dallington, Richmond, Wainoni, Bexley, Brooklands, Spencerville, Kaiapoi and Pines Beach......soon to have underground dams round them...what about the worms...will there be DOC research to identify rare life at risk of being wiped out!
Funny thing is.....nobody seems to have any evidence that underground dams do a bloody thing to stop the ground from getting the wobbles....is this just one big load of BS?
Portugal's central bank has given warning that the country's banking sector faces "intolerable" risk unless its government implements planned austerity measures, as continuing fears for the health of the eurozone dragged the euro to a 10-week low against the dollar.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/817145…
jonlivesey
35 minutes ago
Recommended by
3 people
The only disagreement I have with AEP's summary is the way it's filled with oughts and shoulds.
If anyone thinks we can adjust our strategy now in accordance with our feelings about what ought to happen and who ought and ought not to suffer and so on and so forth, they are missing the point.
We have already reached the point in the financial crisis where it is not so much that events are taking place, as that events that have already taken place are unfolding.
I believe that from Monday morning, the World's Bond markets ceased dealing in fundamentals. They are now dealing with trying to safeguard themselves from what is already in motion, like skiers trying to ride an avalanche.
There comes a point in a financial crisis where dealers stop worrying about whether debtor X or Y can survive or pay, but simply concentrate on avoiding disaster if they don't. And that means selling and hedging. Those who can dump EU debt will do so, and will continue to sell into any temporary relief rally. Those who continue to hold EU debt will hedge by buying Credit Default insurance, which will put a huge strain on the finances of any Bank or Insurance company brave enough to sell it. Those who hold no EU debt will try to short it.
In other words, this is pro-cyclical selling for fear of others selling. Sauve qui peut.
And by the way, despite what I personally think of the principals here, I think that any suggestion that this is some clever plan to unify Europe is hopelessly optimistic. That would be like blowing up your house in the hope that the bricks will land in some aesthetically pleasing pattern.
I believe that two deadly things have taken place this year: one is that Sarkozy and Merkel seized control of ECB policy, and the second is that neither one of them has the slightest notion of how markets work.
I read that commentators are now calling this the "Merkel" crash, and I think that is dead right.
"Thousands of Canterbury families will not be able to return to their earthquake-damaged homes for about three years"stuff.co
Hundreds of millions will go to pay for 10 metre concrete stone walls in trenchs....said to prevent the 'soil' going wobbly in a another big quake...will they become known as The Walls of GerryCo
"Prime Minister John Key has slammed bureaucratic pin-pricking over the proposed New Zealand financial services hub as "absolute rubbish" and stepped in to put the project on the fast-track.
.. Gerry Brownlee has been ordered to produce an urgent paper covering a zero tax rating for the relevant foreign funds which Key wants incorporated in the November taxation bill and passed by April 1 next year."herald
Well I never...and there we were thinking key was all 'smile and wave'....so he does have the desire to do SOME things quickly!..........that's good John....we like more action and less blather....perhaps now you might like to take your big foot off the brake peddle that ensures the banks continue to be able to fleece the public and farm the country for fatter profits on the back of the bubbles that are being protected by RB and govt policy.
Oh and while you are at it...has it dawned on you that the MED is a waste of taxpayers money...!
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