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.

And today we lead with news markets are all quiet ahead of the US Fed monetary policy review and results will be announced at 8am NZT. Markets do not expect any rate change, but given the aggressive start to the Trump Administration, markets will be watching for any Fed reaction. It seems unlikely to come today however.

US mortgage applications were a little softer last week through the Washington swamp burp, down -2%. And the benchmark 30 year interest rate stayed just above 7% and little changed as lenders assessed the risk implications.

Both wholesale and retail American inventory levels fell in the latest accounting out overnight.

But as expected, the American trade deficit rose sharply in December as traders rushed to beat the aggressively-signaled tariffs threatened by the incoming Administration. That is entirely consistent with what we had reported for trans-Pacific freight rates. In fact exports fell rather sharply too with buyers fulling back on the risk of capricious American actions. And imports jumped - in fact they were +15% higher than the same month a year ago. The biggest increases were for food, industrial supplies and capital goods; imports of vehicles actually fell. Substituting these for local supply, which seems to be the plan, will probably create distortions that will be inflationary.

Global air cargo demand ended 2024 on a high too, with a surge in international air cargo to and from North America.

The Fed will be watching for the actual inflationary reactions, but they may not show up for a few months yet. But by the time they do show up, the impulse may be embedded already. They have a tough watch-wait-react conundrum ahead of them - well aware that if they get it wrong, Trump will blame them.

In Canada, they have already announced their rate decision earlier today, and as expected they cut by -25 bps to 3.00%. They face the same pressures from their neighbour, but from the other side. They are in the unique position of not having a friendly neighbour any more. They also signaled that they will no longer reduce their balance sheet, so the end of their qualitative tightening program. From here on, their balance sheet will be set to grow at the same rate as their economy. 'Normalisation' is returning at a much higher level that pre-pandemic. Back then they had a balance sheet of C$117 bln. They are 'normalising' now at C$280 bln.

In Russia, after some successful 2024 central bank moves to keep a lid on inflation, producer prices are taking off again, up +7.9% in December. The Kremlin-pressured back-tracking on those moves is having the anticipated effect, and they are heading into a period of high inflation again.

In Australia, there were some mixed signals in the Q4 CPI data released there yesterday, along with their Monthly Inflation Indicator for December. The Q4 CPI rate fell to 2.4% from 2.5% in Q3, and slightly better than expected. Underlying inflation fell to 3.2%. But the month inflation indicator rose to 2.5% in December, up from 2.3% in November and 2.1% in October, and actually the highest in four months, so tracking the "wrong way". Markets however focused on the "good" quarterly result, anticipating this will open the door for a RBA rate cut on February 18. But you have to wonder if that is actually how Bullock & Team see it.

Markets have reacted very little to the Aussie CPI data, signaling that all the risks are priced in. Politically, some think a February RBA rate cut could mean an April federal election there.

The UST 10yr yield is at 4.55%, down -1 bp from yesterday at this time awaiting the US Fed decision.

The price of gold will start today at US$2752/oz and down a minor -US$6 from yesterday.

Oil prices are up +50 USc at just over US$73.50/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now at US$77.50/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar is now at 56.5 USc and down -10 bps from this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are up +20 bps at 90.8 AUc. Against the euro we are little-changed at just under 54.3 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today just under 67.1, and also little-changed from yesterday.

The bitcoin price starts today at US$101,997 and down a minor -0.3% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at +/- 1.4%.

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.