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Hello, I’m David Chaston with Ninety at nine, brought to you by interest.co.nz. This
is where you get everything you need to know in 90 seconds at 9 o’clock, including news
the week before Christmas will be full for data wonks.
It is a week of very big key data releases and policy announcements. On Tuesday, we get
the Half Year Economic and Fiscal update from Treasury, followed by the Budget policy statement
from the Government. The surplus track will be the key point.
Across the ditch, the new Aussie government gave up over the weekend on returning to a
surplus, saying they just have too many issues at present.
On Wednesday we get our September current account, followed on Thursday by the Q3 GDP
result.
In between and early on Thursday morning the US Fed will report, and all eyes will be on
whether they will be tapering or not.
Then on Friday, we will get details on November's migration levels.
All of these things could affect our currency, and influence how the RBNZ thinks about its
late January OCR decision. Markets have priced in a hike in the first quarter of 2014. Of
more immediate import, markets seem to have accepted the Fed will taper on Thursday.
Elsewhere, in China they have confirmed their intention to turn urbanisation into a powerful
engine to drive growth and remake the economy, saying they will encourage rural residents
to move to smaller cities, rather than megacities.
It focused on urbanisation and heavy industry capacity reduction for 2014 in a key four-day
economic conference that wrapped up over the weekend. The urbanisation drive may help New
Zealand exports; the capacity reduction may hold back the growth of Australia's mineral
exports.
The NZ dollar starts today at 82.6 USc, 92.3 AUc, and the TWI is at 77.9, its highest level
in a month.
I’m David Chaston, and that was 90 at nine, brought to you by interest.co.nz.