Vanity trumps progress in Hormuz standoff

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. Today we lead with news of an apparent agreement to wind back the crisis levels in the Persian Gulf. But details are not available. One thing is clear however, the US will be in a significantly worse position than if the Obama deal with Iran had not been torn up by Trump. Follow up statements by Trump that "It isn’t even fully negotiated yet" suggest things aren't quite as close as he earlier suggested. And the headline news that one "Supertanker With Iraq Crude Exits Persian Gulf as Talks Continue" highlights how little progress has actually been made. But locally this week will be dominated by two big set piece announcements. First, the RBNZ will review its monetary policy settings and while no-one expects them to change, all eyes will on how they view the current inflation pressures. Markets have a +25 bps hike priced in for July 8. Following that, the Government will deliver its election Budget. It will likely be all "jam today" but couched as 'responsible restraint'. Credit rating agencies will be interested readers, especially around the credibility of the forecasting. And on Friday, there will be the usual month-end data released for April, plus a mountain of March quarter data released. And the RBNZ's Dashboard will also drop on Friday. In Australia, we will get the April CPI data on Wednesday, and the household spending update on Thursday, both expected to be elevated. It will be a busy week in Japan where we will get industrial production, retail sales, consumer confidence, and the unemployment rate. Meanwhile, the Bank of Korea will also decide on monetary policy. Data from China will be relatively light, but we will be interested in their FDI update. We should note that this will be a long weekend holiday in the US, Memorial Day, and their unofficial start of 'summer'. For the record, tradition states that investors should "sell in May and go away" until the end of this period on their Labor Day (September 7). This 'rule' is a warning that their summer financial markets can be volatile. Wall Street will re-open on Wednesday, NZT. Data from the US this week will limited, although PCE data, and the weekly ADP Employment update will be watched closely. As will the durable goods order data. Over the weekend the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index plunged to a record low in May, revised down sharply from the earlier and preliminary report. This is the third straight monthly decline. Petrol prices are getting the blame and it's cause, the chaotic Middle East adventure. The cost of living remained the top concern in this survey, with 57% of consumers spontaneously citing high prices as eroding their personal finances. Lower-income consumers and those without college degrees posted the steepest declines, as these groups are more sensitive to rising gas and essentials costs. Critically, consumers grew increasingly worried that inflation would spread beyond fuel prices in the long term. Year-ahead inflation expectations edged up to 4.8% from 4.7%, while long-run expectations climbed to 3.9% from 3.5%. Things may not get easier, even with slightly lower oil prices. Fed governor Waller said he supports removing the "easing bias" language from the Fed's outlook, and the next change could be a hike, even if it is some way off. He followed that up with remarks that it would be "crazy" to lower rates at this time. investors are bullish that the Iran-US war will end soon, but consumers are very negative about how all this is hurting them. Profits are remaining high, insulated from the rising costs, but household living costs are making consumers very grumpy. In Canada, and for a fourth month in a row, retail sales rose in April, but largely because petrol prices are higher. And that is even after the volume of petrol sales fell. In fact, overall sales volumes are trending lower. Canadian producer prices rose a sharp +2.0% in April from March, to be an uncomfortable +11.4% higher than year-ago levels. These changes are worse than expected. Despite all the global pressure their business are under, Japanese consumers avoided the impacts in April. Their inflation edged down to 1.4% from 1.5% in March. Food prices rose the least in 18 months amid a further slowdown in rice costs. After falling sharply in April, South Korean consumer sentiment rebounded in May, although not quite back to levels it was between June 2025 and March 2026. Still, this new level is above every month from December 2021 to May 2025 and was a much stronger bounce-back than was anticipated. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.57%, up +2 bps from this time Saturday. The price of gold will start today down -US$6 at US$4509/oz to be down -US$42 for the week. Silver is down -50 USc at just under US$75.50/oz. Oil prices have firmed +50 USc to just on US$97/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is up at just on US$104/bbl. The Kiwi dollar is down -10 bps from Saturday at this time at 58.5 USc and up +10 bps from a week ago. Against the Aussie we are holding at 82.1 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at just on 50.4 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 62 which is down -10 bps from Saturday, up +10 bps for the week. The bitcoin price starts today at US$76,601 and very little-changed, down just -0.1% from this time Saturday, but down -3.2% from this time last week. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just under +/- 1.4%. Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we’ll do this again tomorrow. Audio soundtrack opening is licensed from Shutterstock, Track 1219389 Monetization ID TFGEPGEI0LHEIJAI