Market movers for the day – Rabobank

Analysts at Rabobank explain that data-wise, this morning has already seen the NZIER business survey record pessimism about the economy, despite a lift in demand, due to sentiment over the new government: there were particular concerns over minimum wage hikes, and hiring intentions fell to a 5-year low.

Key Quotes

“Profitability also remained weak, with no optimism over recovery, with rising costs and yet no ability to pass these on to consumers. That’s going to worry the RBNZ on multiple fronts. In Australia, we got the NAB business conditions survey for March, which likewise dropped to 14 from 21: natch for the RBA.”

“For the rest of the day we have three ECB speakers (Nouy, Nowotny, Visco, and Jazbec) and then the Fed’s Kaplan and the BOE’s Haldane (enjoying jollies to Beijing and Melbourne, respectively).”

“In terms of data we see the US NFIB small business survey, which is likely to be far more ebullient than the Aussie and Kiwi equivalent – though it will be interesting to see what the respondents make of the potential trade war backdrop.”

“In other data we see Canadian housing starts and US PPI inflation, then wholesale inventories.”