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Kia ora.

Welcome to Wednesday’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  bond yields worldwide climbing as rising oil prices are raising inflation concerns. Financial markets have raised the chance of widespread interest-rate hikes. US Treasury 10 year yields hit 2025 highs at 4.8%, while Japan’s equivalent rate hit 3% for the first time since 1996. German bund yields climbed to 15-year highs and UK gilt yields to 18-year highs.

Not helping are a new round of attacks by a trigger-happy US on Iran.

But first, there was a full dairy auction overnight and the overall results were modestly positive. Prices in USD were up +0.9% and up +0.6% in NZD. The big mover down was cheddar cheese suffering a -6.6% fall. The big mover up was SMP with a +5.3% gain. WMP was very little-changed. In fact, SMP prices are now higher that WMP prices, the first time like this since July 2022. In between, the WMP premium actually got as high as +US$1550/tonne.

In the US, there were two factory PMIs out for August, both essentially holding a moderate expansion there. The widely-watched ISM one came in fractionally lower than for August, with new orders growing at a slightly slower rate and price pressure little-changed. The internationally benchmarked S&P Global one was little changed, noting output and orders both rising at slower rates, with stock building efforts continuing amid supply issues and higher prices.

The US Logistics Managers’ Index fell for a second consecutive month due to a slowdown in inventory expansion, while logistics costs continued to rise at a high pace.

July JOLTS data shows job openings rising while quits fell, but these changes were actually quite minor.

The US RCM/TIPP optimism index is still in an easing trend that started in early 2025, but it has held at a modest level in August, similar to the June and July levels. There were offsetting shifts with greater confidence among investors and higher-income households, but a deterioration in sentiment for non-investors and lower-income households.

Meanwhile the Dallas Fed services sector activity moderated in August, but is still expanding.

The Canadian factory PMI was little changed where their expansion was maintained at solid rate with output, new orders and employment all rising in August.

Japanese consumer sentiment rose again in August, something it has been doing consistently since April.

As we suspected, the private China factory PMI by S&PGlobal (Rating Dog) came in much more positively that

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