When’s the last time you’ve been without internet?
How did it feel? A bit awkward? Not sure what to do with yourself?
That’s what my wife and I have been dealing with for the past few days. We recently moved into a new house…and when I went to get the internet hooked up, the fibre company said that it would be a week at least before it could get turned on.
Oh boy…
As a millennial, I have a heinous dependence on the internet to survive.
I’ll often catch myself with Netflix on the TV, my laptop open on my lap, while surfing the web on my phone. Yes, I’ll do all three things at the same time.
With no internet, there’s a gaping hole in my daily grind…especially over the weekend.
It’s a strange feeling: half-anxious and half-bored.
So my wife and I went on a walk up to Bastion Point for a little relaxation and to do some ‘deep wondering’.
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Bastion Point / Source: Taylor Kee |
I started thinking about you, actually. We receive all sorts of letters each day from you and your fellow readers. Reading each one is my favourite part of the day.
But I’ve noticed a theme in some of the more condemning letters that I’d like to address.
A few readers have been disappointed by my poor ‘business journalism’. That I’m sometimes ‘biased’. That I often emphasise analysis and opinion over the facts and data surrounding an issue.
And for that, I’d like to sincerely apologise — I never intended to portray my work as ‘business journalism’.
Business journalists report the news. Their goal is to relay the facts as quickly and as accurately as possible to you.
If that’s what you’re looking for, there are half-a-dozen fantastic sources I’d recommend.
But that’s not what I do. It’s not my goal. It’s not what I’m good at.
No, I focus my efforts on sifting through the information that business journalists report. I read the landscape and connect the dots as best as I can.
I’m not looking to tell you about things that have already happened. I want to show you things that could happen soon. To discern the growing trends…and interpret what that means for us as investors.
To poke holes in the mainstream’s party line…and to expose any threats to your wealth.
At the same time, I earnestly research New Zealand’s least-known ideas to unearth opportunities that could make you better off.
And to us, we believe the best way to serve you is to be both forward-thinking and highly cynical.
Business journalists, on the other hand, do neither.
So if you’re looking to see what happened to a stock yesterday…or how many homes were built last month…or which start-ups have already made it big…then feel free to check into your favourite reporter.
But if you want to know which stock could explode tomorrow…or how the market could crash next month…or which start-up investments could make you rich in the years to come…then tune into our daily Money Morning New Zealand e-letter.
It’s an approach that’s led the network behind Money Morning to accurately predict the dot-com bubble, the Great Financial Crisis, Brexit and even Trump’s election.
It’s an approach that has helped loyal readers discover stocks that have gone on to post double-, triple-, and even quadruple-digit gains… [openx slug=inpost]
What does this mean for Kiwis like me?
Here’s what our analysis has been detecting for New Zealand’s market.
The housing market could be poised for a significant fall. Not like a feather floating down on to a pillow. No, this bubble could very well explode overnight, erasing decades of gains, and driving hundreds of thousands of Kiwis underwater on their homes.
And we’re concerned by the government’s attempt to intervene. Schemes like KiwiBuild or HNZ are inefficient and expensive…and might be leading some homeowners to believe that the market is sufficiently propped up. Sadly, we’re not hopeful that the state can bear the coming crash.
At the same time, we’re carefully watching China’s development, because when Xi Jinping sneezes, New Zealand catches a cold. We’re mostly optimistic for what China’s new middle class means for New Zealand exports — but offensives like the Belt and Road Initiative could be extremely disruptive for our economy.
The Beehive is opening the debt floodgates. We’re alarmed because it’s happening during an era of prosperity. Typically, you’d see high government spending during the weaker part of the market cycle…to help prop it up temporarily. But, instead, the state is injecting millions of dollars into an economy marked by low unemployment, low interest, low inflation, and record-high gains on the stock market.
To us, it’s as if the state has been stuffing the economy’s mouth with painkillers. Maybe it was appropriate when the Great Financial Crisis hit a decade ago, but now it’s just feeding an addiction and building up a tolerance. When the next crisis hits, it’s going to be very hard to keep the market afloat.
In the same vein, interest rates have rolled downhill for 30 years. It’s now at an all-time low. When a crisis happens and the economists at the RBNZ run to drop the official cash rate, they’re going to find that they don’t have much more room to play with — just 1.75%.
For reference, to survive the Great Financial Crisis, the RBNZ had to drop it over 5%.
However, while we hold this bearish view on the New Zealand market as a whole, we see several pockets of opportunity.
New Zealand’s tech sector shows a lot of promise. We’re investigating individual companies to see if investors like you could turn their potential into profit.
We’ve also seen HUGE gains for cannabis investors in newly legalised places. If it’s legalised here in the next few years like we expect it to, folks who manage to get in early could make some hefty returns.
And China, as we mentioned, is a bit of a mixed bag. But for exporters in certain industries, China’s young wealthy population represents a gold mine. We think that New Zealand is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this development as it occurs.
These are just a few of the positions we currently hold here at Money Morning New Zealand. But every day we update our research and our analysis…and every day there are new evolutions that bring new threats and opportunities.
To stay up-to-date on what could happen, just keep tuning into your daily issue of Money Morning.
Best,
Taylor Kee
Editor, Money Morning New Zealand