Markets like tamer data

<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>Today we lead with news the heat is going out of some of the global pressure points - and equity markets like that.</p><p>But first there was a <a href="https://www.globaldairytrade.info/en/product-results/" target="_blank"><strong>dairy auction</strong></a> overnight, and not an especially good one. Overall prices were down -3.5% in USD terms and down -1.2% in NZD terms. Leading the fall was WMP with a -4.0% fall. We are lucky we have a depreciating currency because that has limited the retreat. There was also a large retreat in the butter price (-7.0%), but every component fell. <a href="https://mcusercontent.com/b8a03199b83b7d3f31d0f2086/files/c31f8fbc-3ea5-8e6c-c7fb-543e4cc05cea/GDT_317_Report.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>This was a surprise</strong></a> in terms of the signals from the derivatives market, but the intervening <a href="https://www.globaldairytrade.info/en/product-results/gdt-pulse/" target="_blank"><strong>Pulse events</strong></a> have signalled that WMP might be soft, and it was. This events decline ended the prior two price rises. <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/charts/commodities/dairy-prices"><strong>Overall prices</strong></a> are back to where they were in August.</p><p>American <a href="https://www.redbookresearch.com/" target="_blank"><strong>retail sales</strong></a> last week rose to be +12.3% higher than the same week a year ago. This data is on a same-store basis and is the strongest result since the end of August. Some of this increase will be inflation of course, but not all of it.</p><p>Meanwhile, pressure on the US job market seems to be easing. The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm" target="_blank"><strong>job openings there dropped</strong></a> to 10.1 million in August, the lowest since June 2021. That is down from a