The Red Center delivers a morally bankrupt America

Kia ora,

Welcome to Thursday’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 it was a night of celebration in the US, especially for billionaires, and those pushing extreme social and religious views. The decisive second coming of a Trump Administration will free up new divisive narratives that will spill over globally. It is a great time to be a crony capitalist because your influence on a morally bankrupt president will be easy.

There will be global economic consequences - almost all of them bad for trade and small countries. Markets have reacted that way already. Impending isolationism is raising the US currency (which will hurt their exporters significantly), commodity prices are already getting a twist, Bond yields are rising, and sharply. And equity markets are rising on the sugar hit of expected lower taxes, ignoring for now the longer term costs of much higher interest rates and much higher inflation as new tariffs essentially impose taxes on US consumers.

The change in culture from a free and open society to one that will be bitter and vengeful will drive global consequences we won't like. But we will have to find our way in a renewed thicket of imposed and imported bile. For a while we will have to live in a fact-free world.

Economically, US mortgage applications fell -10.6% last week from the prior week, and that is their sixth consecutive retreat. They are now back to level-pegging with the low levels of 2023 at this time. Mortgage interest rates rose sharply last week, and are now likely to rise much faster in the future.

Trump's spending plans could add US$7.5 tln to American deficits over 10 years, according to one estimate, far greater than the current track. US Treasury yields rose almost +50 bps in October, when markets were pricing in a higher likelihood of a Trump win. Inflationary pressures from Trump's policies will leave the Fed with less room to cut rates, and keep Treasury yields elevated. The US housing market will be a loser. In fact, that is likely to be generally the case elsewhere because of sharply swelling US deficits.

American car sales rose in October to over a 16 mln annual rate. This is another metric likely to be challenged by higher future borrowing costs.

There was a UST 30yr bond auction earlier this morning, again well supported. The median yield jumped to 4.57% pa, sharply higher than the 4.32% at the prior equivalent event a month ago. Secondary market yields jumped as well (see below) as investors foresee chaotic and unprincipled public policy starting in 2025.

The Central Bank of Malaysia held its overnight policy rate steady at 3% for the ninth consecutive meeting. This was what was expected.

The easing of deflation pressures in the EU turned in September to be worse, with their PPI down -3.3% from a year ago.

In Australia, the Ai Group Industry Index retreated again in October with a sharp drop, especially for new orders. This index has indicated contraction for the last thirty months.

The UST 10yr yield is now at just on 4.42% and up +8 bps from this time yesterday. 

The price of gold will start today at US$2667/oz and down -US$71 from this time yesterday.

Oil prices are down -50 USc at US$72/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is now at US$75.50/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar starts today at 59.4 USc and down -60 bps from this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 90.5 AUc. Against the euro we are up +40 bps at 55.4 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just under 68.7, and actually little-changed again from yesterday at this time.

The bitcoin price starts today at US$74,244 and up +5.9% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been very high at just on +/- 4.8%.

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 on tomorrow.