Gold, oil, benchmark bond interest rates and bitcoin all rise

Kia ora,

Welcome to Tuesday’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 that long term benchmark bond interest rates are still rising, even if the rising trend is variable.

It is a quiet economic data day in the US, with a housing building confidence index the only release of note. The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose in November to it highest level in seven months, as its gets an election relief rally of sorts, modest to be fair.

In Canada, housing starts rose back to their 2024 average level but it was a three-month high for them.

Across the Pacific, Japan's core machinery orders, which exclude those for ships and electric power companies, slipped by -0.7% in September from August, in the red for the third straight month and missing market expectations for a +1.9% gain. Year on year, these are -4.8% lower. Export orders held up relatively well, however.

Singaporean exports turned down in October. The fell by -4.6% from the same month a year ago, reversing from a downwardly revised +0.9% rise in September. It marked the first decline in since June, due to a fall in non-electronic exports. Non-electronic shipments slumped -6.7%.

In China, new Bloomberg analysis shows more detail on their population problem. Within 20 years, deaths are set to be double the number of births. The old-age dependency ratio may reach 52%, meaning there would be just two working-age individuals for every person over 65 years. The rapid aging and falling birth rate has the United Nations projecting China's population could shrink to half its current size by the end of the century - that's 700 mln people less, a decline double the current size of the US population. Even Japan's population isn't shrinking like that (although it may do in time).

In Australia, regulator ASIC has taken NAB (BNZ's parent) to court alleging it ignored hardship support for 345 "vulnerable customers" between 2018 and 2023 (about 60 per year), saying the failure to respond broke the Australian credit code. NAB has about 10 mln customers and about 35,000 staff. The chances it got something wrong for 60 of their customers in a year is almost a certainty.

The UST 10yr yield is now at just on 4.45% and up +1 bp from yesterday at this time.

The price of gold will start today at US$2610/oz and up +US$47 from this time yesterday.

Oil prices are +US$2 higher at US$69/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is now just on US$73/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar starts today at 58.7 USc and up +10 bps from this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are down -30 bps at 90.5 AUc. Against the euro we unchanged at 55.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just over 68.5, and up +10 bps from yesterday.

The bitcoin price starts today at US$92,065 and up +2.0% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at +/- 2.2%.

You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.

You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.

Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. And we will do this again tomorrow.