Kia ora,

Welcome to Monday’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 Australia is facing some hard choices in their relationships with China and the US. Can you have security without economic stability? Can you have stability with a disrespectful and unreliable partner?

But first, this coming week will be dominated by today's New Zealand CPI release later this morning. And a full dairy auction on Wednesday.

In the US, there is some expectation that they will get their September CPI data at the end of the week (expect higher than 3%) despite the shutdown. But most focus there will be on the Q3 earnings season announcements. CPI data will also come from Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. But there will be PMIs from all over this week and well as interest rate decisions from Indonesia and Korea. And the Chinese will review their Loan Prime rates although no change is expected.

From China, they will release Q3 GDP data, which is expected to show a small sag (to 4.8%?), along with a range of other core economic metrics which should give a broader fix on how they are tracking

Over the weekend in India, bank loan growth accelerated to its fastest pace of expansion in September, for all of 2025, up +11.4% from year-ago levels to US$2.3 bln.

After two months of declines, Singapore's exports rose almost +7% in September from a year ago, largely on the back of recovering exports of electronic goods.

In Malaysia, their Q3 GDP result shows them expanding +5.2% from a year ago, accelerating from +4.4% growth in Q2. It is their fastest expansion in a year

In Australia, there is growing concern about the building of uneven wealth distribution and how inheritances embed both inequality and entitlement. A failed attempt to address it through their superannuation system reforms has just raised the pressure to 'do something'.

A more immediate stress is also building in Australia; American pressure to de-couple from China. This seems quite unlikely given the local wealth-weight dependent on the China trade. But it will make for 'interesting times' in the AU-US relationship.

In the US over the weekend President Trump seemed to back off his sharp rhetoric against China in another TACO moment. Markets went into temporary relief mode on Friday. There was more TACO for Ukraine, even Gaza but both of them just added to the mess he made.

The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.01% and unchanged from Saturday but down -4 bps for the week.

The price of gold will start today at US$4251/oz, up +US$30 from Saturday. Over the past week, gold is up a net +5.8%, silver is up a net +3.3% and platinum is now marginally lower.

American oil prices are holding lower at just on US$57.50/bbl, with the international Brent price now just over US$61/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar is at just on 57.4 USc, and up +10 bps from Saturday. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 88.3 AUc. Against the euro we are up +10 bps at 49.2 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 61.9, up +10 bps.

The bitcoin price starts today at US$108,732 and up +2.4% from this time Saturday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just on +/- 1.3%.

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.