Economic data weaker everywhere

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Wednesday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>And today we lead with news there are signs of weaker economic activity everywhere.</p><p>But today we start with tough local news. <a href="https://www.globaldairytrade.info/en/product-results/"><strong>The overnight dairy auction</strong></a> saw prices fall -4.7% in USD terms, down -6.6% in NZD terms as the value of our currency rose. The key WMP price was down -5.2%, although the foodservice ingredients fared a bit better mainly with lower reductions. After the recent Fonterra cut to farm gate milk prices, analysts will be wondering whether another trimming will be in the works - and it will throw into question next season's pay out level.</p><p>In the US, <a href="https://www.redbookresearch.com/" target="_blank"><strong>retail sales</strong></a> inched up +3.7% last week from year-ago levels on a same-store basis, but that is still far from covering inflation. So they fell in real terms, just not as much as they have done in recent weeks.</p><p>The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm" target="_blank"><strong>job openings</strong></a> in the US in February slipped below 10 mln and that was far weaker than what markets were expecting. This is near a two-year low. It is being taken as a sign that their labour market slowdown is arriving. We will get the March non-farm payrolls data on Saturday (NZT) and that is still expected to deliver a +240,000 jobs gain, but perhaps some analysts will be rethinking this after the JOLTS miss.</p><p>February <a href="https://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/prel/pdf/s-i-o.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>factory orders</strong></a> in the US stayed in negative territory, slipping -0.7% from January after the -2.1% slip the month before. That puts them only +1.7% higher than year-ago levels and far less than accounts for inflation