90 seconds at 9 am with BNZ

90 seconds at 9 am with BNZ: 520 Christchurch Casino jobs in doubt; RBA to hold rates; US jobs growth boosts US interest rates

4th Apr 11, 7:59am by Bernard Hickey

Bernard Hickey details the key news over the weekend in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that Christchurch's Casino has offered its 520 staff redundancy and 4 weeks pay or the option of staying on unpaid in the hope the casino may reopen elsewhere at a later date. (Video to come by 9am).

See more here at Stuff.

The big layoffs are another blow for Christchurch, which now faces a critical 90 day period to get back on its feet before the expiry of jobs subsidies that have already cost the government more than a quarter of a billion. See more here at NZHerald.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia meets tomorrow to decide on its Official Cash Rate, which is currently set at 4.75%, well above the 2.5% set by our Reserve Bank. See more here at Bloomberg.

Most economists expect the RBA will leave its rate on hold this month, but that further hikes are likely in either the second or third quarters of this year as the central bank tries to contain inflation from the biggest mining boom in Australia's history. See more here at SMH.com.au.

What happens in Australia matters because it is our largest trading partner and its reactions to what happens in China, which is now our 2nd largest buyer of exports after Australia, are important to watch.

Meanwhile in the United States on Friday night, figures emerged showing 216,000 jobs were created in March, which was more than the 190,000 median forecast from economists. The unemployment rate also fell too 8.8% in the world's largest economy. US consumer spending was also stronger than expected. See more here at Bloomberg.

US interest rates rose as hopes/fears of a stronger recovery boosted the outlook for inflation and the US 2 year Treasury bond yield rose to a 10 month.

This is important because US interest rates form the base for interest rates globally and where they go others tend to follow.

However, the US stock market rallied again on Friday.

The S&P 500 extended its gains this year to 6% and added to the 13% gains from last year. See more here at Bloomberg.

The New Zealand dollar was solid over 76 USc in trade late on Friday.

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16 Comments

by Kunst | 4th Apr 11, 8:39am 1301863155

Solving the many impacts of the “Christchruch Earthquakes” must be of national interest - but are they really ?

Why is there so little coverage what’s really going on and why does the media NZTV not cover regularly and openly debate the many aspects of "Solution Findings" for one or two hours during prime time ?

Isolated from the wider NZpublic, the consequences can have the potential of bringing the NZeconomy to it's knee.

We should demand from our broadcasting minister Dr J. Coleman to consider and scrap a number of crime programs in stead of valuable programs to help the people of Christchurch rebuilding their life’s, homes and businesses.

by Wolly | 4th Apr 11, 9:15am 1301865352

Do you ever do any research Westminster or is it all just a matter of what cnbc say has to be true?....go and read all of this report...you might learn something.... http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27327.html

and when done with that one..try this one....at some stage the penny might drop!

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27263.html

not that I expect you to admit you are one of the sheep.....just to rub it in Westminster...finish your lessons off with this one...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27195.html

by steven | 4th Apr 11, 9:44am 1301867098

While I can agrre MarketOracle is loony.....well CNBC is just trash....Bloomberg a bit better.....

What facts are you quoting?

The one about US un-employment no longer being in a death dive?

"Property up"?

regards

by Snarlypuss | 4th Apr 11, 10:22am 1301869340

CNBC, once Eupore tramsmission stop, are worse than Fox! At leastFox deosen't pretend to be anything expect biased. CNBC, on the other hand, get rid of any opinion or commentator who strays too far from the agreed scrpit. Dyland Ratigan ( a previous host ) and Jeff Mackie ( a previous commentator) being to glaring exapmples.

by goldenfox | 4th Apr 11, 10:39am 1301870391

CNBC is shyte.. They were still talking the bubble up in 2007

Bloomberg is ave.. most real arbitrage banks don't use there data

CapIQ is solid.

by steven | 4th Apr 11, 10:53am 1301871221

No, CNBC is positive spin heaven....they are not capable of producing balanced articles or real information.

Fox is right wing biased as opposed to positive biased....huge difference.....

regards

by steven | 4th Apr 11, 11:01am 1301871672

So what you are saying is instead of the expected death dive we have something uh not quite so bad.....I guess that's sort of good news.....its a fact instead of the guess work, true...

Fact?, uh, US Un-employment, the 10% only quotes those actively looking for work and not those wanting work but have given up looking because there isnt any, Clinton changed the criteria in the 1990s.......the actual un-employment is somewhere close to 18% maybe 20%.

The Fed has been doing massive QE'ing....yet all they have managed to do is maybe stall the death dive, but QE2 is finishing....this is also a FACT....

Becareful with FACTs these days they often are out of context or not FACTs...and could present part of a picture when you dont look at all the FACTS.

regards

by Wolly | 4th Apr 11, 11:17am 1301872642

Westminster...you wouldn't know a fact if it bit you on the bum.

by steven | 4th Apr 11, 9:16am 1301865394

"strong"? some imagination......

Try looking at the un-employment graph yourself....at best its flat, but still looks a bit down...for me the so called "up" could be nothing more than, noise...at the moment....3 or 4 months of trend reversal, better but still a poss of a dead cat bounce....

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/been-down-so-long/

"We need much more than this"

Also of course the Fed etc are finishing QE2 which is a huge stimulus....if all they can manage is 100k to 200k more employed with all they have spent....and are now stopping spending....thats not great IMHO.

Property UP.....anything is possible Ive decided...until its impossible then you are road kill...

regards

by Dannte | 4th Apr 11, 9:35am 1301866548

190 000…216 000.... How many are generated to massage the statistics, how many are generated with new debt? Are these job creations sustainable? But it doesn’t matter, because the numbers are insufficient to jump-start the economy. And we all know that the official unemployment number is a joke. Double the figure and you are closer to the real rate.

by steven | 4th Apr 11, 9:10am 1301865022

Someone sent me this,

"So unconfirmed at this stage but as various parties are still looking at the PDF files released by the FED in terms of the 31 March court order.

Here is a breakdown from one commentator as regards the discount window.

The amounts by Origination Month:

Mar-08 $314,603,859,472

Apr-08 $594,483,596,500

May-08 $321,617,819,000

Jun-08 $176,898,428,000

Jul-08 $52,451,029,612

Aug-08 $45,343,165,850

Sep-08 $1,574,142,741,955

Oct-08 $3,772,730,119,087

Nov-08 $2,286,486,699,431

Dec-08 $2,549,226,873,128

Jan-09 $1,844,943,188,050

Feb-09 $1,418,439,291,157

Mar-09 $808,637,350,713"

Anyone have more info/comment?

regards

by Vanderlei Luxemburgo | 4th Apr 11, 11:17am 1301872649

Great to see the govt has done a lot of hard work on their energy policy. After a lengthy consultation process they didn't listen to anybody. Is there a pattern developing here?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10716965

here's the actual document

http://coalactionnetworkaotearoa.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/nz-energy-strategy-nzeecs-v12-21-march-11-1.pdf

i love this line:

"For too long now we have not made the most of the wealth hidden in our hills, under the ground, and in our oceans. It is a priority of this government to responsibly develop those resources" seems to disagree with their goal of 90% renewables doesn't it? So my question is, is this just empty words, or is it a well thought out document outlining some epically jumbled thinking?

by Chris_J | 4th Apr 11, 1:00pm 1301878835

520 jobs at the Casino isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

Probably into the thousands of staff have already been laid off. I know a law firm who slashed their staff a few days after the quake when they realised what would happen with conveyancing. Most real estate firms in the suburbs have closed some of their offices and let them to professional firms dislocated from town.

Business was already bad now it's abysmal. The total job losses will be at least 20,000. These are serious economy changing numbers, yet it's all being swept under the carpet.

The yellow pages lists 200 restaurants and 100 cafes in the CBD. Most of those won't reopen ever - that must be 3000+ jobs. Whitcoulls and other chain stores won't be opening CBD branches anytime soon and probably never. Take a look around the opened up south city area, the small number of green stickered buildings (perhaps 25% of retail in the area) are often being vacated as business owners surrender to a weak economy and the likely 90+% drop in foot traffic. So many hotels and backpackers are now gone or badly damaged: Crown Plaza, Copthornes, Grand Chancellor, Centra, Hotel So, Base Backpackers, Stoneyhurst, Charlie B's and so on, that's hundreds if not thousands more jobs.

All we are getting are stupid ideas from Govt such as setting up a (yet to be used) campervan park at the A & P showgrounds??? Plans to build 10,000 temporary homes http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4842853/Housing-job-will-go-to-NZ… - why when there is no shortage of houses for rent in the city because of an exodus no one seems to have noticed??

Such total disorganisation, lack of sensible ideas and complete inaction on dealing with the real issues - like getting CBD business and property owners onside and ready to get back into action - is hard to comprehend.

Key has let NZ stumble back into recession in his short time in Government, he now has no idea how to fix a crippled city. All he is doing is managing to destroy any confidence that remained.

What the Govt incorrectly assumed after September was that these type of problems fix themselves with some broad intervention (like Fletchers doing the repairs etc). The past 7 months (YES SEVEN MONTHS TODAY) has taught us is that these interventions stymie any recovery, yet we see the same ill-conceived decisions being made.

SOMEONE PLEASE SAVE US!!!

by Kunst | 4th Apr 11, 1:14pm 1301879649

Chris - the NZpublic can save you - but not by decisions made behind close doors. (Please, read my comment on top)

by powerdownkiwi | 4th Apr 11, 2:33pm 1301884409

Chris J - with respect, have a wee think.

This country, and indeed, the planet, was already going backwards before the 'quake.

It's a bit like you've fallen overboard from the Titanic - is it really worth asking to be pulled back on board? They're on their way down too.....

Chch has an amazing opportunity now - is indeed ahead of any other city in this regard - to rebuild sustainably.

That doesn't mean a traditional CBD. The trend with social media and skyping and the like, was that more work was always going to happen from home, even as there becomes less of that kind of 'work'. As the opportunities to make 'profit' dwindle in the face of reducing supplies of cheap/good-quality energy, folk were always going to divest any divestable overhead.

Rebuilding sustainably isn't done by the 'free market'. That is just a dumb collection of short-term selfishness. It has to be via a social comversation, the forum for which is created by good governance.

There we have a problem.

by FCM | 4th Apr 11, 1:40pm 1301881211

Chris have to agree with you here. I have heard lot and lots people also that have lost jobs, the ones outside of the news paper, most of them are already facing the prospect of having to move to another location to hunt for work, sure there will be jobs down the track (construction) but a large number hospitailty and white collar workers will be left with little choice but to move on. Once the jobs go, and they are starting to in rapid numbers, then the rebuild process will slow up as well.

i did see this coming after my dealings with EQC , council etc ..after the September earthquake, just a shambles, same people are still in charge, so did not expect anything less.