TLDR & TLDL: Russia's shocking and monumental invasion of all of Ukraine overnight is, of course, awful for Europe and likely to disrupt the European economy, especially in the east. It has also shunted the oil price over US$105/barrel and is likely to push our petrol prices over NZ$3/litre.
But the financial implications are not all bad for New Zealand. Aluminium and dairy prices jumped to fresh record highs overnight on fears about falling Russian and Ukrainian exports of aluminium and wheat. Our export earnings will also benefit from the NZ dollar being shoved back down to 66 USc overnight as a flight to US dollar quality wiped out its gains after Wednesday’s hawkish Reserve Bank statement.
In other news this morning:
Chris Hipkins says the Govt is considering dumping self-isolation requirements within a month because the 6,137 Covid cases in the community yesterday far outweighed the eight cases seen at the border (Newshub);
CoreLogic reports the median capital gain on properties sold in the December quarter was $420,000, almost double the profit of $230,000 seen in the last quarter pre-Covid (paid subscribers can see more analysis of that below the paywall fold and in the podcast above); and,
10m RATs are set to arrive over the weekend, with 5m having arrived in the last two days, Ayesha Verrall announced this morning. (Stuff)
Paid subscribers should look out shortly before midday for my invite email for the weekly Ask Me Anything for an hour at midday, along with an invite and link shortly before 4pm for our weekly one hour ‘hoon’ webinar with Peter Bale and special guests. We’ll be talking about housing, interest rates, Ukraine, inflation, protests and housing. And gin. With tonic. I’ve also put the entry link to the zoom webinar for paid subscribers under the fun thing below the paywall fold.
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