In an earlier post we mentioned that the US currency appears to appreciate in the face of bad news – a bad sign for economic stabilisation. After saying this, I noticed two articles up on bloomberg: Dollar Falls on Speculation U.S. Bailout Plan to Increase Debt Treasuries Prove Irresistible as Deflation Bet Trumps Paulson Very […]
The June quarter seems so long ago now, but it will not be until Friday that we find out whether the economy managed to have a technical recession over the first half of the year – following the 0.3% fall in March. The RBNZ suspects that there was a 0.2% decline in economic activity in […]
Although the high levels of public and private debt in the US should concern me, and the collapse in asset values should have me shaking in my boots, there is another factor that has me really concerned about the outlook of the US economy: The exchange rate. Now, the US$ is still weak relative to […]
On Friday, Statistics NZ told us that the current account deficit had spiked to 8.3% of GDP in June, from 8.0% in March. When I was watching Agenda, some of the commentators appeared to view this increase as a bad thing. Now I have said before that a current account deficit is not a bad […]
Recent credit market uncertainty has seen the funding cost for retail banks rise significantly. It is possible that the impact of the 50 basis point cut in the official cash rate on September 11 could be more than wiped out. As a result, if credit market uncertainty remains over the next month there will be […]
I see that this is a popular topic at the moment, so I thought I would add my two cents. Before doing so I’d like to point out that the Rates Blog has a good piece on it, and this Stuff article gives the opinion of most of the banks (BNZ’s currency strategist also gives […]