90 seconds at 9 am: Rate cut talk

90 seconds at 9 am: US retail sales better than expected; US stocks rise; NZ$ firmer; Talk grows of NZ rate cut as eyes turn to slowing inflation

16th Oct 12, 9:01am by Bernard Hickey

Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news US retail sales grew a stronger-than-forecast 1.1% in September, indicating consumers in the world's biggest economy are recovering some of the spending mojo.

Consumption makes up around two thirds of US economic activity and is a driver for demand for exports from the likes of China and Europe.

Core US retail sales growth of 0.9% in September was also better than expected. See more here at Reuters.

US stocks are closing up around 0.6% on hopes for recovery, which helped boost the New Zealand dollar to 81.8 USc from 81.4 USc. Our currency often rises and falls with appetites for riskier assets such as US stocks.

However the 'Empire State' index of factory activity in the New York State region showed activity contracted in October for the third month running, suggesting weak global demand for US manufactured goods is keeping a lid on America's recovery. See more here at Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, all eyes will be on New Zealand Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data for the September quarter. Economists are expecting it to slow from around 0.5% from 1% the previous quarter, giving the Reserve Bank room to cut interest rates.

Financial markets are now pricing in a 90% chance of a cut in the Official Cash Rate in the next year in the wake of weak manufacturing and service data in the last week. See more here in Alex Tarrant's piece.

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31 Comments

by SK | 16th Oct 12, 9:31am 1350333102

US consumption up - hurrah!

by Gummy Bear Hero | 16th Oct 12, 10:00am 1350334835

Italian & Spanish bond yields have been coming down for over a month now .....

... and industrial production in the EU grew 0.6 % ..... when it was anticipated to fall 0.5 % ...

....... glimmers of light in the long tunnel of gloom !

by Christov | 16th Oct 12, 10:13am 1350335597

GBH here's a link I think you should cast an eye over......maybe do a quick tot up of the EU's holdings.. not to mention Mitt's stash in the Caribbean

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt

by Gummy Bear Hero | 16th Oct 12, 10:21am 1350336116

China has decreased it's holdings of US treasuries over the last 12 months , and Japan has greatly increased their's ....

...... and curiously , Ireland ( who're reportedly in dire financial straits ) have boosted their holding considerably ....

The Chinese investment is actually only a fraction of the grand total ..... overwhelmingly the greatest % is held internally , in retirement funds ...... but ssssssshhhhhhh ! ..... don't tell Bernard ..... the truth is radically less hickeysterical than his headlines ...

by Christov | 16th Oct 12, 9:37am 1350333452

Apologies for reposting here Bernard but you were late ....and here is where I wanted to put the scoop ......Who's on lockdown BTW...? not David C...! he won't live through it.

The Scoop ......Scoop !!!The RBNZ Governor Graeme (the wheedler) Wheeler announced to his wife over breakfast, there will be no change to the official cash rate, citing the continued targeting of inflation as the ongoing focus of the Reserve Bank.

Waking his wife a number of times during the 30 minute speech , he reassured her that while the policy would appear to be the same as during the previous Governor's tenure , they now would indeed be be delivered with a more dynamic style and better dress sense.

When aroused once more from her state of unconsciousness, his wife said she now felt rested, and further that insomniacs N.Z. wide should tune in for this announcement.

by Wolly | 16th Oct 12, 9:47am 1350334044

Oops...time for another injection of cheap credit drugs...keep the zombie warm.....

"A barometer of activity in the services sector, which comprises 69 per cent of the economy, has slipped into contraction territory for only the second time in the past three years."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10840747

by ngakonui gold | 16th Oct 12, 9:58am 1350334736

if the ocr goes down will that mean i can borrow more for less.

If so then rental property here i come.

The tills will be ringing this xmas.

by SK | 16th Oct 12, 10:15am 1350335711

Dont spend anything on anyone else though will you!

by SK | 16th Oct 12, 9:59am 1350334761

New RR shop in Auckland - the Bentley index is looking positive also.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 16th Oct 12, 10:05am 1350335146

The price of petrol has levelled off ....... buy 3 Bentleys ..... one each for you & for her indoors , and the third one for the farm , for you to take the dogs over to the sheep paddock ....

by Gummy Bear Hero | 16th Oct 12, 10:11am 1350335467

32 of the USA's S&P 500 companies have released their third quarter earnings so far , and 20 of these ( 63 % ) have exceeded their Wall Street profit forecasts .

by Christov | 16th Oct 12, 10:22am 1350336165

Yay..! now if they can just start employing people again...it's all good news for Obama...

Good News...!

by powerdownkiwi | 16th Oct 12, 10:24am 1350336246

Why continue with the nonsense, Hughey?

You lambast 'Malthusians', right? Unlimited growth is possible forever, right?

So it won't make a slight bit of difference, by your flawed hypothesis, if Councils grow indefinitely..... there must be room for them too.

Stupid, or disingenuous? Are you really incapable of understanding my above sentences, or are you purposely advancing some folk, at the expense of others, while spinning the obvious fallacy?

by SK | 16th Oct 12, 10:22am 1350336153

It's all kicking off.

RISK ON.

by waymad | 16th Oct 12, 10:36am 1350336984

Y'all are forgetting the real headwinds in the US - political uncertainty, which (as MoM's link to the Richard Fisher article shows) , has the private sector in ' a defensive crouch'.

And the real US unemployment rate (the U-6 statistic) is still sitting at around 15%, which of course excludes the discouraged, the recently retired-but-wishing-they-hadn't, and a number of other labour-force statistical omissions.

Still, as the old Wall St saying has it - when there's Blood in the Streets, BUY!

by waymad | 16th Oct 12, 11:04am 1350338660

And one for Hugh, which is a great example of the crazy house-materials pricing we have 'ere in Godzone, thanks to a duopoly, stoopid regulators (on the materials, OSH, and the like fronts), and the lack of ComCom cartel-busting (asleep at the switch as per usual).

At the recent Homes Show in Christchurch, Imagine Homes has a price list for landed/delivered kit homes (on yer Chch section!), to some quite good designs, steel framed and needing only foundations, kitchen and bathroom fit-outs plus electrical and plumbing subbies (say around $50K all up) to be good to go.

Prices were from $58K for a 120-odd sq m jobbie, to around $194K for a 394 sq m McMansion. I talked to them about just how this magic occurs, and it's simple: they can land and deliver houses for 65% of the NZ equivalent price, sourced out of Brisbane, designed and cut using standard CAD-to-CNC technology. Good QC is possible in a factory environment, and the disintermediation inherent in kits, cuts out a lot of the 'Mr 10%' crap that poor ol' NZ seems to get stuck with.

If these were placed onto a sensibly priced section (< $100K once the LG DC's and other deadweight is stripped out), and even allowing for a 3-person/3-month build (say, $50K for that labour cost), then we have ourselves a total price which runs like Zis:

Section 90
Found/kit/bath/subs 50
House kit (mid range, say 170 sq m) 90
Labour for erection (Don't Even Think about riffing on this) 50
Total (counts on fingers) 280

Which at a household income (avg, Christchurch) 58K is (toes brought inter operation) a Median Multiple of 4.8

Which yes is still high but better than the Demographia 6 point something which is the overall reading.

And if'n yer could DIY (steel frames are an impact-wrench job) and save some of the labour (say, half), economise the size of house, econ the kit/bath fit-out and go for a smaller overall size (at say 75K), and run wiring/plumbing flexi lines yerself and just get the subbies to couple it all up, test it and sign it off) then the equation could look like:

Section 90
Found/kit/bath/subs 35
House kit (small, say 120 sq m) 75
Labour for partial erection (No riffing on this) 25
Total (counts on fingers) 225
Median Multiple (same income) is now 3.9 - within coo-ee of the magic 3 or thereaboots.

Course, none of this will happen. Too many minions with clipboards to feed, house and placate....and too many Hallowed Turfs trodden all over by Dreadful Ozzies.

by powerdownkiwi | 16th Oct 12, 1:39pm 1350347960

Waymad, you can do better than that.

What is a steel box-section or a wooden 100x50 ? They're a beam, with one skin in compression, t'other in tension, and a neutral core holding them apart. No more, no less.

Outside of which skins, you apply others (cladding/plasterboard) ?

In engineering and materials terms, that's tautology.

To make it worse, you then stuff the neutral core with insulation in another operation, then have subbies falling over their unchoreographed selves doing the services?

Spare me. The boat-building industry got there years ago. I built our first roof of skin/core/skin to beat GST - was it '87? 6 metre span between supports. Did the total house this time in '05. Comes in a kit, off your plans, pre-finished in your colours each side, made in Chch! Framing is not needed, indeed that reduces the mass/inertia, not to mention cost.

Applying intelligence, services are at two basic heights, so the panel could have two service conduits, and they'd all mate up, or mouse-as-you-go. Heck, you could probably plug panel-to-panel. Subbies would go the way of the corner butcher - working for peanuts in a factory.........

It has to happen, I've known it since at least '87, and probably earlier.....

Over on another thread, there's a question of what to teach. The above is not even lateral thinking, it's just a process of applying logic, having first stripped away the 'assumed givens'. Perhaps that's where we should start in the schools.

by wtf | 16th Oct 12, 1:59pm 1350349147

Can you give us the name of the Christchurch company? I was thinking of simple pavilion design - 120m2 rectangle with minimal internal walls. The light steel roll forming machines are impressive in what they can achieve. Very little waste, light and quick to assemble whole sections.

by waymad | 16th Oct 12, 3:42pm 1350355358

Wtf, link is in the thread but here is is spelled out. I did like the designs although (a NZ warning) they do tend to low pitched roofs so have to watch snow etc loadings.

http://www.imaginekithomes.co.nz/

PDK, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and monolithic panel construction suffers from a major long-term sustainability flaw: if a panel fails (the unexpected SUV about to collect yer loved ones rams it, or the unexpected metre of snow from Global Cooling busts it) they are damned hard to fix.

Stewart Brand (the Whole Earth Cataolgue guy) in his sublime book 'How Buildings Learn' has a more nuanced view aboot how to build for the long term, and being able to patch things up, access to services without having to dismantle skins etc, is a huge part of it. He uses a Design Patterns (Chris Alexander) extension: Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space, and Stuff: ranging from slow to fast-moving, with the overall notion that a building is a pattern in time (just like a city - see e.g. Steve Johnson 'Emergence'.)

So I'd rather follow the 10,000 year crowd, ta very much, because they think further, and there are more of them. Collective, emergent intelligence, not lone wolves.

by powerdownkiwi | 16th Oct 12, 3:52pm 1350355965

How many houses get driven into?

I don't have any services in my outer panel walls (was just trying to guess the mass market...) .One major in/out traverse. All services are accessible along the internal (ply) dividers. My water services all happen within a 2-metre spread. Thought of that.....

Having fixed the odd sandwich boat, I'd say they're not hard to fix, indeed I'd rather tackle that than rip Gib off to get at a leak.....

Is steel allowed in the South Island? It shouldn't be - thermal transfer must be abysmally quick.

by scarfie | 21st Oct 12, 3:12pm 1350785564

Thanks for that link to "How Buildings Learn". Sounds like my sort of design approach, I have requested it from the library. :-)

by powerdownkiwi | 16th Oct 12, 3:44pm 1350355453

We call it Bondor down here, two suppliers in Dn.

About $100 a sq/m, finished, for 100mm panel.

you choose from the coloursteel chart, colours inside and out.

Best designed in multiples of 1.2 (no wastage. So you'd be 9.6x12, 2 side walls 9,6x2.6 (average), one rear one of 12x2.4, and roof say 11x13.2.

say 220 sq/m. $22,000 for 3 walls and the roof, finished. Take you two days, a long one for the walls, a short one for the roof. Would need one long-ways beam amidships somewhere (creates a cantilever, so doesn't much matter where). No insulation needed, no painting, no stopping, no framing (single storey carries snowloading, or did when we built!) and you might need to carry your beam.

by steven | 16th Oct 12, 3:26pm 1350354373

DIY steel frames? huh,

Wood is easy....a $9 saw and 4 inch nails and a $4 hammer....not hard to do either. Its also NZ grown...takes carbon out of the atmosphere....

make life easier, buy a $249 DIY grade bosch chop saw.

But lets look at the labour, where you save is in not doing something....use ply panels for interior walls for instance, cheap and easy. External walls what about 100 or 150mm freezer wall panels..way less framing etc...

Im not so sure its the clipboards as a) ppls expectations b) builders etc make a lot more money on the finishing....

Some services you can do yourself, plumbing I do all my own, council inspector just looks it over but I think Wgtn is one of the few councils to allow that. (has that changed?)

Also the finishing, the regs look a lot tougher so just what you can do as an owner seem more limited....that is ppls choice.

regards

by waymad | 16th Oct 12, 4:01pm 1350356517

Good points, Stevey lad, but yer a'talkin' to the converted.

Yes, Minions with Clipboards are gonna want everyone to use LBP's (different for Foundtaion, Roof, Brick, External Weathertightness, Carpenters, Site Supervisors).

And want You ter pay for 'em.

Monolithic panels are not a sustainable long-term proposition - see my comments to PDK on why.

That's why I predicted - that none of this will occur, because the deadweights (deadbeats?) are too strong at present.

by powerdownkiwi | 16th Oct 12, 8:57pm 1350374273

Bollocks Waymad - your 'reasons' didn't stack up.

I repeat - how many folk drive SUV's into their houses, and how many construction methods would cope? Plaster, perhaps? Horixontal corry? Spare me, that was lame.

Snow loading? Mine had to cope with 600mm, and we went to the metre (3 rows of portal poles, 3 beams). It could be done with thicker panel, too.

My first roof is still 100% - structurally, paint-wise, and dry-insul wise, installed '87. I've pulled a 1976 coolstore apart (much more chance for ptrecipitation, freezers being worse) and it was mint too.

This is coloursteel we're talking about - Just is it not sustainable when the skins of a panel, but it's OK as a roof or walls?

Prejudice aforethought, methinks.

Or are you in the business of selling what you suggest? Like the Whole (save the planet - from consumption - by buying from the list, yeah right)....... Come across a prejudice, always look for the vested interest....

by StanGoodvibes | 16th Oct 12, 3:38pm 1350355124

Just a couple of technical points there waymad...

1. A reasonable priced section in Chch now is $0.00. Any more than that and you'd have to be mad to live there. Build your house somewhere else that's actually nice and isn't an earthquake risk.

2. a Mediam Multiple of 3.9 is not within coo-ee of 3. it's 30% more.

by waymad | 16th Oct 12, 3:49pm 1350355799

Don't believe everything yer reads in the MSM, SGV. 90% of Chch is jest fiiine, and as NZ is smack on a tectonioc plate boundary, nowhere, literally, is immune to Gaia having a Grumble. A quick catalog: Rangitoto around 600 years ago, Taupo around 1800 years ago, Wellington a continual series from 1848 to 1942 and has been far too quiet ever since, and lets not even talk aboot Mounts - Tongariro, Taranaki, Ruapehu.

So, by your wown logic, 'ye'd haveter be Mad to buy land in NZ....'

Getting closer to a reasonable Median Multiple is shurely a Good Thang???

Don't let the Perfect get in the way of the Good, M8.

by SK | 16th Oct 12, 12:04pm 1350342283

US Housing market back from the dead also.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-15/cemex-loss-narrows-as-housing-recovery-fuels-u-s-sales.html

by waymad | 16th Oct 12, 12:11pm 1350342696

M'sieur Hollande - meet John Galt.....

by starfish1 | 16th Oct 12, 2:12pm 1350349944

US housing market is back from the dead as the rich are buying up properties on the cheap and renting them out to the people who lost their homes during the foreclosures. If you buy a property in the USA now you will do alright as low risk for house price correction and money printing has helped keep a lid on futher price drops. US housing a safe bet now.

by meh | 16th Oct 12, 2:29pm 1350350993

Maybe in certain locations but I wouldn't bet on it. Many reports indicate a fairly large shadow inventory held by banks that they will hold on to as long as possible to push up existing prices.