fxmatters

It has been usual in recent years for the NZ dollar to weaken in March, strengthen in April. The pre-conditions appear to place for the second leg of this pattern to re-occur … Read NZ dollar on upward path again.

• 25 March 1957 – the Treaty of Rome to establish the European Economic Community (EEC) was signed.
• 27 March 1980 – “Silver Tuesday”, the day the silver price halved as the Hunt brothers failed in their quest to corner the market.
• 31 Mar 1913 – JP Morgan, the greatest financier since Nebuchadnezzar, dies.

• March 2004 – the yen gains 2.9% against the USD in the last two weeks of March.
• March 2006 – the NZ Trade Weighted Index falls 3.4% on over the last two weeks of March.
• 24 Mar 1903 – Bankers Trust incorporated to handle the trust banking of private citizens following the collapse of numerous banks in previous years.

These are risky times, especially for a small and highly leveraged country. But that’s where a strong cousin comes in handy. Also handy are the retail brokers as an alternative to your bank … Read Choppy but still firm.

After two big weeks we return to the more mundane data-watching now, and probably towards the range trading evident since December … Read More Sideways Trading

• 13 Mar 1907 – the ‘great panic of 1907’ starts with a sudden plunge in share prices.
• 13 Mar 1986 – Microsoft goes public at $21 per share.
• 16 Mar 1996 – “there is no human feeling to the US securities markets and sometimes no discernible evidence of human intelligence either, but they work” RJ Eaton, US auto exceutive.

• March – the NZD/AUD has depreciated in 14 of the last 20 years, including by 4.5% March 2006.
• 7 Mar 1995 – speaking about equities, Warren Buffett said “the true investor welcomes volatility … a wildly fluctuating market means that irrationally low prices will be attached to solid businesses”.
• 9 Mar 1776 – Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” goes on sale; 123 years later it was “Barbie” hitting the store shelves.

The Chinese sharemarket tumble set in train a series of large reactions last week, including a lower NZ dollar. This could be the start of the larger NZ dollar slide but there is one more change required … Read A global reassessment of risk