Kia ora,

Welcome to Friday’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 the all bets are probably off on how 2025 will turn out as the cascading impacts from the Trump tariffs surge around the world.

We were anticipating we would be reporting some tariff retaliation news today, and there is some. But the most significant retaliation is from financial markets. It is comprehensive.

So far there are no substantive retaliations announced, only threats to do so from China, Japan, South Korea, and the EU. But Canada has hit some US cars with a matching 25% tariff. Some countries - like New Zealand and Australia - have said they won't retaliate, but they tend to be the ones who only got slapped with a 10% rate on their exports. For them it is wise to see how much will be effectively paid by US consumers, and in NZ's case it will likely be most of it. Most of the impact on us will come from second-effect reactions in other trading partners.

Perhaps most galling were the 32% tariffs Trump slapped on Taiwan.

Back to the economic data releases, US jobless claims were unchanged last week from the week before and only marginally higher than year-ago levels. There are now 2.07 mln people on these benefits, about +7% above year-ago levels. But that is their highest since November 2021.

There was a surge in job cuts reported in March, by far the highest since the early pandemic reaction. Although most are public service cuts, it seems unlikely they will be the only ones in the months ahead.

The employment component of today's ISM services PMI was unusually weak, and the overall index tumbled to its weakest since July 2024. It was barely expanding in March. The internationally-benchmarked S&P Global/Markit version had its big drop in February, and the latest March version records a small bump up from then. But it reported cost inflation up to an 18-month high.

Attention now turns to tomorrow's March non-farm payrolls where a most rise of +135,000 is anticipated.

US exports rose in March as part of the repositioning in anticipation of tariffs and retaliation. But an interesting detail is that of the +US$8.3 bln rise to US$278.5 bln for the month, US$3.2 bln of that was the export on gold. US imports held very high for a second month at record levels. (Imports of gold decreased -US$1.3 bln. The market chatter was that gold was flowing into the US, especially from London. Apparently that was just rumour.)

Across the Pacific in China, the Caixin services PMI rose in March and to its best level of the year. This was notably stronger than the official services PMI. New orders rose the most in three months, driven by increases in domestic demand, supported by a broad improvement in demand conditions. We see that in improved Chinese buying in the dairy auction.

Australia is reporting sharp drops in job vacancies. The latest data is for February, and the levels reported are almost -10% lower than year ago levels, down for that -5% in the prior 90 days alone. Almost all the decreases are in the private sector.

Container freight rates slipped -2% last week from the week before, to be -26% lower than year ago levels. However they are still +55% higher than pre-pandemic levels.

Bulk freight rates fell -2.5% from last week to be -8% below year-ago levels. Basically, these rates are back to pre-pandemic levels.

The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.04%, down -17 bps from yesterday at this time. 

The VIX volatility index has jumped suddenly, although not yet to an extreme level.

Wall Street is in its Thursday session down -4.3% on the S&P500 after the tariff announcements and showing no signs of improving. 

The price of gold will start today at just on US$3108/oz and down a net -US$24 from yesterday.

Oil prices have dropped -US$5 from yesterday at just on US$66.50/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now just under US$69/bbl. Not only is demand expected to soften as tariffs take their toll, eight OPEC+ countries unexpectedly announced a +411,000-barrel-per-day production increase for May, far exceeding the planned +135,000 bpd. It seems an incredibly naive announcement from their self-interest point of view

The Kiwi dollar is now at 58.1 USc and up +80 bps from this time yesterday. That is a +1.8% appreciation since the start of the week and a +3.8% appreciation since the start of March. Against the Aussie we are up +40 bps at 91.5 AUc. Against the euro we are down -20 bps at just over 52.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today now just on 67 and up +20 bps.

The bitcoin price starts today at US$82,172 and down a sharpish -5.8% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been very high at +/- 4.1%.

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 Monday.