Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news the S&P 500 is edging slightly higher in late trade, up for a fifth straight day, on better-than-expected jobless claims and trade data in the United States and hopes of further stimulus action from China's central bank.
China’s industrial-output growth unexpectedly slowed in July to a three-year low while investment and retail sales missed estimates, raising pressure on the Chinese government to step up efforts to support expansion. Their factory production increased 9.2% in July from a year earlier, but that was below all 32 analyst forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey.
Importantly, electricity production - a key metric many anlaysts look at rather than the official stats - eked out only a 2.1% rise and pointing to an even sharper slowdown in Chinese manufacturing. Inflation cooled rather sharply and for a fourth straight month, and producer prices fell for a fifth month.
Despite the slowdown, the Chinese government is keeping its curbs on their property market. House sales there in July were 15% lower than in June.
The US trade deficit in June narrowed to its lowest level since 2010 as exports reached a record level and imports declined due to sliding oil prices. And that improvement contrasts with a widening trade deficit in the UK as it suffers from eurozone weakness.
Still in the UK, there are reports that fully half of all jobseekers there would take a paycut to find a job. There are signs that kiwis may be returning home in greater numbers, and of course they will all need a house to live in.
The NZ$ starts the day still becalmed at 81.1 USc and a very exporter-friendly 76.8 AUc.
No chart with that title exists.
20 Comments
Yes the question is...what are they rebuilding.... It is a crime the number of people that have come to Christchurch to find there are few new jobs... let alone the people living here waiting for work....PR BS which actually has a nasty effect on peoples lives.
They get away with it as most people are too busy with or interested only in their own lives, also doesn't help the media are based and biased in Auckland.
Hugh we may not see eye to eye on many things however thanks for always putting some issues out there..you are resilient!
Good round up on the China slowdown from A E Pritchard.
“Deflation, not inflation, is the greatest short-term threat to the Chinese economy.” “The hard landing has happened,” said Charles Dumas from Lombard Street Research. “We don’t believe offical data. We think GDP slowed to a 1pc rate in the second quarter.” A blizzard of weak data has caught policy-makers off guard, though shares rallied in Shanghai on hopes for monetary loosening from China’s central bank after consumer price inflation (CPI) fell to 1.8pc. New property starts fell 27pc in July. Industrial output growth fell to 9.2pc for a year ago but has been flat over recent months." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9465651/Hard-landing-for-China-as-factory-prices-fall-and-deflation-looms.html
the S&P 500 is edging slightly higher in late trade, up for a fifth straight day, on better-than-expected jobless claims and trade data in the United States and hopes of further stimulus action from China's central bank.
though shares rallied in Shanghai on hopes for monetary loosening from China’s central bank
Everything based on hope that govts. and central banks can fix things. Why is the value of sharemarkets so important? What real benefit is there in buying and selling shares to each other? Is deflation really that much of a threat?
The China hard landing has started and nothing will stop it from crashing into a big pile.
Hu-Wen clique has decided that housing prices must come down from the stratosphere and until they are off the scene early next year, this policy cannot change. Housing is important for Chinese as they no longer enjoy free goverment housing any longer. The fact that it averages 12 to 16 times annual income means it is a potential time bomb for the goverment. That is also the reason why the goverment is hurrying into the pipeline 8 million (yes 8 million !!) units of low cost housing.
But because so much financing is tied into the property sector, the squeeze is also killing the financial model of China's local goverment and business. Big industrial business however is plaqued by large excess capacity and most if not all are running at a loss. The more they produce the more they lose. The latest is in the Solar Panel industry (yes the new high tech sector ) where almost all the manufacturers are bankrupt and is unable to pay creditors. The other industries (steel, cement etc) is treading water hoping for a miracle to survive.
If the rest of the world is looking to China to pull it out of this mess they better be getting new glasses......
The gas price over here is way up. It was about 3.70 a gl now its $4.10 again. It hurts these guys, its beyound their comprehension, and in an election year too.
heres a great rant
>>>>>>>
Why really, do 'banks need to lend to each other,' at all?
What's all this actually about?
And don't somebody start leaping about with the schoolboy text book stuff about 'need for overnight liquidity' or settlements or wholesale rollover dates...
This is all so much absolute nonsense.
Why REALLY, do banks need to lend to each other? Shouldn't they be actually lending, to actual borrowers and users of credit... Instead of window-dressing their own balance sheets and valuations based on 'flow' sizes with interbank borrowing??!!
And while I'm on it, another thing re StanChart. Oh boy is this riddled with things that no one will ever want to 'come out.' What does it mean 'funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to US enemy, Iran?' You mean crediting British Aerospace with the proceeds of Persian Light Sweet Crude shipped at night through the Eastern side of Hormuz? Perhaps we can ask Prince Banda back to enlighten us on how this type of thing is done. He ought to know since he has done it enough times for Chase and BOA.
As for this Karl Rove-spread claptrap about Russians selling arms and equipment to Iran - so does everyone else who makes arms and equipment. And I do mean EVERYONE.
And that means you too, Uncle. I think that the amount of control that additional twit Assad has over what happens over there is exactly - none. He' s not shifting the pieces, much though Fox would have us believe that he is. He's a puppet. And I'm afraid to tell you all, that Persian Light Sweet Crude is favoured by Germans in particular, for their Porsches and Lamborghinis. I'll not say anything about people driving Corvettes or Vipers up and down Napa Valley.
'Money laundering?' Standard Chartered? You MUST be kidding!
Money dirtying, quite frankly, is what happens when New York lends IVECO Truck-loads of money to Sweden and then all of a sudden you get Karl Rove pumping propaganda up there. Bye bye SAAB. Bye Bye Julian. Hello austerity and the radical Right. And a blonde-haired seat at the Euro-Disaster Central Planning Commissariat.
Calvin J. Bear
http://forums.wallstreetexaminer.com/topic/1045074-banker-goes-apesht-i…
this is not related to 90 at 9...
I think it is MUST reading..... This explains it much better than I could..... how the benefit of Money supply growth goes to the ones who get first use of the money..
ie. The transfer of wealth into fewer and fewer hands...is systemic...and much of that has to do with Central banks and the banking system .
http://www.ilghirlandaio.com/ftp/telpress/2012042302192102052.PDF
Cheers Roelof
The disturbing news is that it appears that those who run the economy, the government and their advisors, and also the mainstream media who comment on it, do not have a clue about what they are doing. As the alternative news is even worse and rather improbable: that they are damaging the economy on purpose. But from logical perspective such option cannot be ruled out either.
No I agree....though occam's razor, simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
For me its, they have a political and economic mantra that is best decribed as voodoo. So in effect they are shoving on leeches because thats all they know, want to know or believe in.
The only two options are a) educate them, which frankly I suspect is a non-event or b) get real doctors.....and in that case its the patient (voter) who does that....and the patient doesnt want to.....he want to believe the vision of happy ever after.
regards
LOL, Thatcherism...oh god....
"If they do the same old thing and slam down a few more roads to the Gobi desert they will end up with stagflation. They need Thatcherism to get out of this,” said Mr Dumas."
I mean we have had 30 years of that slowly failing and now its rinse and...er repeat?
regards
And Greece is living off the ECB, which is breaking the law...the ECB is printing euros, to give to the Greece, so that Greece can make interest payments to the ECB on maturing bonds
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/complete-absurdity-in-greece-ecb-prints.html#w9hHElBXYS6XCSYa.99
The Great Escape
The deepening crisis in the eurozone could see Britain quit the European Union for good, according to one of the world’s leading investment banks.
This is an interesting one given the sale of the electricity generators. Rio Tinto is making a loss on Tiwai Point because of the fall in aluminium prices and wants to renegotiate electricity rates.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10826027
15% of NZ's consumption at bargain rates already. It would be hard on the workers there and Southland in general but what really are the pros and cons here of letting the smelter go. I remember reading years ago that the smelter jobs were effectively being subsidised to the tune of $200,000 each. Don't know if that is accurate but with falling electrical consumption nationwide and efficiency gains available, can we secure power security for decades with that 15% - no new capacity required. What would that do to the value of the generators and the price of electricity? Can that electricity be used more effectively elsewhere? Huge regional pressure to save the hundreds of jobs but can we afford to keep subsidising them with all that cheap power? I think I know Bill English's answer.
Bernard , remember when you said that Kim Dotcom & his cobbers should be " thrown to the wolves at the FBI " .......
..... it's emerged recently , that the FBI claimed Dotcom was in possession of a " doomsday device " at his palatial Auckland home . And that this device was designed to wipe out all evidence of internet piracy ......
Clearly this is more of the paranoiac delusions which have beset US government agencies , as we've witnessed over recent decades ...
... but the fact they were able to drag the NZ Police force into their hairbrained idiocy does piss me off !.... we are supposed to be a sovereign nation , not a lapdog for the Americans ... there are times , and this was one of them , when we should flip the Yanks the Kiwi " bird " ...
Lest we forget Kim Dotcom's purported crime , which started this fiasco : He created MegaUpLoad.com , a new business model , to cut out the fat middle out of the established entertainment firms , and give cheaper entertainment to customers , and greater exposure to artists .
.... care to comment , Bernard ?
You are now on the FBI list Gummy....it's a visit from the coppers in choppers for you.
How best to make yourself safe from budget chops...do a little choppering!
Bit like the shiney bums in the Lab dept with their scaffolding theatre...gotta stay in the Ministers eye as necessary Gummy.
Rule one for all new senior civil servants....learn how to be needed.
Hmmmmm....is this the organisation that was under the absolute control of a gambling Godfather, that told Americans the Mafia did not exist and it was bank robbers they were after..an organisation that spied on the members of congress...and kept files on Presidents...
Just as well somebody bumped him off.
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