Search Results for:

Another strong day for the likes of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto after copper prices had their best week for nearly two monthslast week.

New nine month highs for world oil prices as the Gaza strip fighting and takeover by Hamas boosted speculative activity, helped by those continuing supply problems in the US.

A spiky, volatile week last week and we can expect more of the same in the week ahead, but activity might settle down as it becomes clear there's little upward pressure on US prices and thereforeinterest rates.

Another glimpse of the problems confronting the Chinese authorities: not only is inflation rising, but industrial production is now running well above the level the government thinks comfortable.

Housing rated a substantial mention in yesterday's speech by the Governor of The Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens.

Well, both reassuring news and an old, old message from Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens.

Cyclones and heavy monsoonal rains stripped $1.5 billion off mineral exports earnings in the first three months of the year, according to the Australian Bureau of Resource and Agricultural Economics(ABARE)

The National Australia Bank believes the outlook for inflation and interest rates in 2008 is worsening and it would not surprise if the Reserve Bank sought some "reassurance" in the face of the economy's increased growth momentum and continuing low rates of unemployment.

Copper prices are the one commodity (apart from gold, which is more 'financial') that investors should be watching closely during this time of volatility and interest rate-driven nervousness.

So will the great bond ogre leap up and bite stockmarket investors and their fortunes around the world again this week?

The scene is set for a battle between the New Zealand Reserve Bank (and presumably the Government) and the market (especially big investors) over the value of the Kiwi dollar and the overall direction of NZ interest rates and the economy generally.

With unemployment at a 32 year low of 4.2 per cent, employment surging (66,000 fulltime jobs created last month) and a one in a thousand year drought, not to mention a sluggish homebuilding industry in the big states of NSW and Victoria, why don't we have wages and inflation problems, and why do we have a boom?

Despite the solid economy and booming resource and infrastructure sectors, some companies operating in those sectors are struggling, as Coates Hire owned up to yesterday.(See below).

Bond yields have increased significantly since March. This largely reflects greater confidence about economic growth rather than another inflation scare.

How good is it at the moment for corporate Australia?

Australia is booming and predictably the bears feasted on the stronger than expected rise in gross domestic product for the March quarter.

Asian stocks bounced back yesterday, thanks to a late recovery in Chinese stockmarkets after a sharp fall in early trading left everyone staring a very worrying abyss.

Stockmarkets all but ignored another big sell-off in China yesterday, the third in four days of trading.

Corporate Australia is chugging along very nicely, according to the March quarter business indicators from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

A better end to the week for most major commodities, thanks to more confirmation that the US economy seems to be recovering, and an easing of fears that the Government-engineered volatility in the Chinese stockmarket could cause problems in the wider economy.

Currencies will bounce around a lot this week with central banks meeting in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Britain to look at the health of their economies and the immediate direction of interest rates.