Day 2- Level 3 NZ lockdown.
A wave of optimism filled the air Monday with investors feeling comfortable around risk investments as countries around the world start to relax Covid-19 restrictions. The New Zealand Dollar has held its ground over the 0.60 mark, but the success story of late has been the Australian Dollar. The AUD has been the strongest performer not just over the past week but it has outperformed all its peers since April 6th and continues to be well supported. Coronavirus results have not only been extremely good (bit of luck perhaps) but Chinese data has also been favorable, boosting prospects of economic trade between the two countries. With supply chain disruption subsiding and a number of large companies back online things are starting to improve. Both NZ and Australia remain susceptible to mood changes and massive downturn in economic activity with huge monetary and fiscal stimulus still required to prop things up. But for now both the NZD and AUD are being driven higher.
- NZ Trade Balance published at 672M surplus for March compared to 686M expected
- Global cases of Covid-19 surpassed a massive milestone 3Million with the number of worldwide cases doubling since April 05
- A large number of countries are seeing second wave resurgences of Covid-19 cases
- Boris Johnson dashed hopes that the UK economy would open up after saying he could not take the chance on further outbreak of coronavirus cases
- NZ GDP may rise faster now that we have entered level 3 and no-doubt soon to be level 2 with some hope, this should indicate better numbers starting in the September quarter with GDP expected to be around 13%
- Westpac Bank expects the RBNZ to cut its benchmark rate to -0.5% in the November policy meeting
- The Bank of Japan increased its Government Bond buying program increasing it to 340B Yen from 320B previously
- Japan’s jobless for March came in at 2.5% as expected
- Italy’s infection count is the lowest in 7 weeks with 1739 new cases compared to 2324 on Sunday
- UK Covid-19 deaths rise 586 compared to 300 yesterday, while Spain aims for end of June to return to normal
- PM Ardern says the NZ borders will probably remain closed until either the virus reaches herd immunity through an inability to be controlled or a vaccine is available.
- The number of potential Covid-19 vaccines currently in development around the world is around 70