Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news the UK is to adopt auditor rotation.
But first, there was a surprise from the US overnight. Sales volumes of previously owned homes fell unexpectedly in June as tight supply and increasing rates for mortgages weighed on that market more than expected.
True the decline was minor, but an increase was expected by most everyone. At the same time, median prices hit a 5 year high.
In China, it turns out foreign capital flowed out of the country in June contributing to the credit crunch that briefly strained their banking system.
Meanwhile, a new study shows that China's banks will need up to US$100 billion in new funding over the next two years following Beijing's move to loosen lending restraints.
In Hong Kong, they are struggling with unexpected market reactions to their macro-prudential tool use that is designed to curb their housing market. Banks and finance companies are finding ways around the central bank's new policies and the regulator worries such moves are reducing the effectiveness of their measures.
In the UK, they have announced new rules that will require 'large' companies to tender their audit at least every five years. However, the British proposals are less that what the EU wants to see.
The EU has announced that their debt burden reached an all-time record high in Q1, reaching 92.2% of GDP.
And in Australia, Q2 CPI data is die out today and that is widely expected to be tame, allowing the RBA to reduce its OCR at its next meeting in two weeks.
Oil has given up US$2/barrel of recent price rises, while gold has pushed higher, now at US$1,333/oz which is up 4% from Thursday, and back to where it was about a month ago.
Metals like copper have climbed in price, and the Dow and S&P500 are back near record highs in late trade. US Treasuries rose marginally, yields declined. But with all these core indexes we must remember we are about into the northern hemisphere's summer holiday season, so volumes will be lighter than normal and prices volatile.
The NZ dollar starts today at 79.6 USc, 86.1 AUc, and the TWI is at 75.1.
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5 Comments
US WTI oil prices briefly surpassed Brent crude prices in the last week (before falling behind again), so closing a pricing differential that has existed for many months.
Meanwhile US petrol prices continued to rise and are nearly 5% higher than the same week last year:
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
US drivers are said to be 'fracking all the way to the bank' off the back of this continued good news.
I am glad you posted that chart of natural gas prices PDK. A week or so ago DC made the claim that natural gas prices were continuing their 'unrelenting fall' or some such (off the back of a couple of day's fall I imagine). Like me you are probably used to getting misinformation of that sort from the mainstream US financial sites but it does also now seem to be an increasing issue on interest.co.nz.
The differential was I think due to the problems of getting oil out of the delivery point, its now be train tankered en mass...the difference could well now be the delivery cost difference.
Note the gradual rise in price though, despite 5 years of economic stagnation, oil has pretty consistantly trended up to over $100,
(5y graph)
And interestingly just where is all this US fracked oil? I would have expected the promised abundance of the stuff would have kept the price down...nope.
If it keeps on rising I wonder just how bad the US (employemnt/output etc) data will get as fuel price bites.
regards
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