US data positive although sentiment stays low; markets pause awaiting vote results; dairy prices rise; RBA hikes again but without conviction; China equities can't stop falling.
Kia ora.
Welcome to Wednesday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.
I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from interest.co.nz.
Today we lead with news financial markets are on the sidelines of the US mid-term elections, waiting for clarity on the collective US results.
But first, there was a full dairy auction overnight delivering a good +2.95% overall rise in prices in USD, up +4.0% in NZD terms and that is the strongest result since March. It is all built on the powders where SMP rise +3.1% and WMP was up +5.9%. Also cheddar recovered +8.6% and mozzarella was up +5.8%. But the other milk fats were all much weaker. with butter down -4.7%. The overall gain justifies Fonterra's recent hike in its farmgate payout price.
Meanwhile American economic data out overnight was generally quite positive.
US job openings rose unexpectedly by +333,000 to 7.5 mln in September.
There was a small (+1.8%) but unexpected rise in durable goods orders in September from August to put them +10.8% higher than year-ago levels, although +6.3% PPI inflation will be a part of that. All the same, it is a good rise.
And the RCM/TIPP sentiment index rose in November, and to a nine month high, even if it is still below its long run average and still well below its pre-pandemic levels.
The latest update on their Logistics Managers Index shows a rise that describes supply-chain cost pressure is still building however. This maintains its level that match the pandemic era stress.
Voting is underway in the US mid-term elections but the first exit polls won't be available until about 1pm today (NZT). Early voting has been unusually strong.
In Australia, their fight against inflation is proving to be unusually ineffective so far using monetary policy levers. Yesterday the RBA delivered the expected +25 bps hike taking their policy rate to 4.85%, a high among almost all developed countries. But there were a few unexpected signals, the most obvious being the split vote where a minority of members wanted to hold. That, and some other technical indicators brought some financial market reactions, including the AUD easing, and Australian government bond yields dipping modestly. Most observers think the RBA will pause its hiking at its next December 8 meeting.
The UST 10yr yield is back up +8 bps from yesterday at 4.95%.
Wall Street is firmer with the S&P500 up +0.6% and the Nasdaq up +1.1%. Hong Kong rose +0.6% but Shanghai fell -0.8% and that takes its 2026 sell-off to more than -10%. Home team support is no longer working, it seems.
The price of gold is down -US$40 at US$3928/oz. Silver is now just over US$49.50/oz and down -US$1.50 from yesterday.
Oil prices have fallen -50 USc today, to just over US$96/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is down -US$1 at just on US$103.50/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar is down -20 bps from yesterday at just on 56.1 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +30 bps at 80.6 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at 50.1 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 59.9 and down -10 bps from yesterday.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$77,582 and and essentially unchanged from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been low at +/-0.8%.
You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.
Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we’ll do this again tomorrow.
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