Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news American service industries expanded in March at the slowest pace in seven months and companies added fewer workers than forecast, indicating the US economy may be starting to cool, according to the latest surveys.
US oil prices fell sharply overnight, and the stock market indexes are down almost 1% in mid-day trade.
On the other hand, Fed officials are expecting the US unemployment number to progressively improve over 2013 although not as fast as we have seen in Q1.
Going the other way, China's service industries expanded at a faster pace in March. In fact, fast rising wages in China and other emerging Asian economies signals the end of 'cheap Chinese products'. The flip side will be that workers in those economies will have much expanded incomes and that will change the demand dynamics in world trade.
Silver prices fell to an eight-month low on concern about industrial consumption. Gold fell sharply as well, its second major tumble in the past week, now down to US$1,554/oz.
In Australia, the new home market has suffered a setback with sales falling for the first time in four months.
They slid more than 5% nationally in March, driven by sharp falls in Victoria and South Australia.
We should get the first look at the New Zealand property market for March later today.
The Kiwi dollar starts today basically unchanged from yesterday at 84.3 USc, 80.5 AUc.
The TWI is at 77.2 and very close to its record high.
No chart with that title exists.
9 Comments
"Readers of the Daily Telegraph were right all along. Quantitative easing will never be reversed. It is not liquidity management as claimed so vehemently at the outset. It really is the same as printing money".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9970294/Helicopter-QE-will-never-be-reversed.html
Don't really know what made the readers right Wooly....reading I suppose....Ambrose may have had too much coffee or something.
Still a lot of pointing out the obvious in a very longwinded way, while hinging on if only's to bring the situation to a head...as follows..
The great hope is that this weird episode will soon be behind us, and that such shock therapy will never be needed in the end. If stock markets tell the truth, the world economy is already healing itself. Another full cycle of global growth is safely under way.
spot the oxymoron...?
I have never disagreed with you that QE is theft by any other name....just a bit like Lord thingy there, had, and do still hope the stolen wealth is targeted to the economy and not assett bubbles.
regarding Wollys' link.
Yes.. permanent QE... UNTIL...
1/ Food price inflation causes real Social problems
2/ the mkts fully percieve and respond to permanent QE... ie.. there is a HUGE shift out of financial assets into hard assets.... and the general population wake up to the fact that the CPI does not measure the declining purchasing power of their money.
This is a Central bankers worst nightmare... ( worse than deflation).... as their only policy response is to raise interst rates.. which it is their mandate to do...BUT... they won't until it is too late.
Central bankers are intelligent people ...so it is hard to know what they will do.... they have totally painted themselves into a corner.... I kind of think we are all passengers in the same bus.
NZ is lucky... as we still have to go thru 0% OCR and QE... and it might be a few yrs away... but it will probably happen.... we don't learn the lessons that other countries have gone thru.
Largely agree Roelof except for one point. Central Banks didn't really paint themselves into a corner, it was always a foregone conclusion. Any interest bearing money supply will eventually fail unless a releif valve is built in, the only question is when. The mistake central banks have made is pretending they have any real control over this process.
"grave consequences for the Yen"http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39753.html
Cheaper Japanese electronics to come...anyone for a flatscreen!...better to wait.
And anyone know how many Yen NZ owes Tokyo Rose?
"Ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc trader Matthew Marshall Taylor has turned himself in to federal authorities in connection with charges that he defrauded the Wall Street bank out of $118 million in 2007, two sources familiar with the matter said."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/matthew-taylor-goldman-sachs_n…
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