BNZ Weekly and Offshore Overviews April 3 2008

Welcome to the April 3 2008 editions of the BNZ Weekly and Offshore Overviews.

This week we are running our monthly confidence survey. We know this survey is looked at by policy makers and lots of people worried about what the true state of our economy is. So if time permits please click on the url below and let us know whether you believe the economy will get better or worse over the coming year. Perhaps more importantly, tell us what you see happening at the coal face in your industry specifying what that industry is. Many thanks to those who have contributed in the past.

http://survey.usuite.com/survey/7f801dd05f3742619b046cc119c15106.sur

In this week's Overview we again take a look at the necessary evil that is a weak economy and consider ways in which you might benefit from it. We reiterate our encouragement to exporters to hang in there, relief is coming though it will initially be a bumpy ride as offshore customer growth slows. We report on collapsing business confidence and note the surge in issuing of consents for new non-residential buildings (huh?) and rising growth in lending to the farming sector. And we beat our heads to eventually come up with seven reasons why house prices have fallen when we thought they would just flatten out ? that?s forecasting for you.

Offshore the week has been one of some positive surprises with a large rally in global equities on the back of better than expected manufacturing data in the US and feelings that perhaps the worst of the credit crunch may be over with a couple of banks raising capital. That view would seem premature and there remains a lot of water to go under the bridge before we can safely conclude the US banking system is secured.

While data releases have generally not been earth-shattering overseas this week the big monthly one appears this Friday night ? the US non-farm payrolls (employment) report. It has the capacity to set the scene for currencies, sharemarkets etc. over the coming week or so and a weak result is expected after job number falls in January and February.

WOApr3.pdf
OOApr3.pdf

© Scoop Media