| Can the New Zealand Dollar Sustain Its Rally Beyond A 22-Year High?
This is the first time that we have seen the currency trade at these levels since it was freely floated in 1985 and the most bizarre part of the move is the fact that it was not driven by any economic data or news. Compared to the rest of the world, the New Zealand economy is holding up well but unlike Australia, there are chinks in the armor. A drought in much of New Zealand has spurred a dairy price boom but in the long term, droughts pinch supply which hurts the economy more than it benefits it. With no economic data released in over a week, yield, risk appetite and commodity prices have been the primary catalysts for the latest move. Can the New Zealand dollar sustain its rally beyond a 22 year high? Will the RBNZ intervene again? What’s Behind the Latest Move? Uridashi Issuance: With 8.25 percent interest rates, it was just a matter of time before the move in the New Zealand dollar catches up with the move in the Australian dollar. Even though there is only a 6 percent chance that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will raise interest rates at their monetary policy meeting in March, there also seems nearly zero chance that they will be cutting interest rates any time soon. This has made the New Zealand dollar an extremely attractive investment for Japanese institutional and retail investors who love buying Uridashi bonds, which is debt sold in Japan that are denominated in currencies other than the Japanese Yen. Even though the Nikkei has rebounded since hitting a low of 12,572 on January 22, the stock markets have been very volatile and the US dollar has been weak, making high yielding bonds more attractive to Japanese investors. At the end of 2007, there was net negative issuance in Uridashi, but since the beginning of the year, issuances have picked up steam and we have already seen approximately $800 million released into the market. Risk Appetite and Yield: The Dow Jones Industrial Average has rebounded close to 1000 points since hitting a low of 11,634 last month.
Customer Happiness Suffers in Down Economy
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SNP 'not fit to govern'
This leaves £1.3 billions of efficiency savings to meet the £1.3 billions of tax cuts – a wholly risky financial assumption. The Nationalists propose to save 1.5% per annum in cash terms, which will all have to fall on resource budgets within the Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) to be reallocated for tax reductions. The whole of these savings will have to fall on the resource DEL as savings in the capital DEL cannot be used to fund tax reductions. 11. This creates real problems of delivery. Firstly, at the moment, departments retain any savings for frontline service development. This incentive will be removed if the savings are earmarked for tax reductions. Secondly, Scotland's councils funding accounts for around a third of the DEL and they suffered higher savings targets last time. Thirdly, no British Government has delivered 1% per annum efficiency savings over a sustained period – not even the Thatcher Government of the 1980s.
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