Daily FNArena News - FYI

US personal expenditure numbers for the first quarter will make for interesting reading this week along with a revised first quarter GDP. Credit demand will be key for Australia.

Shane Oliver takes the view the market has seen its lows and will finish the year higher than it is now, but allow for a short-term correction after the recent rally.

Unlike the US and British banks, European banks have been deathly quiet about their balance sheets. And a European economic downturn appears inevitable.

Macquarie has surveyed 1,000 financial planners in Australia and found most remain bullish on equity markets, while clients are increasingly turning to structured products to generate returns.

ANZ suggests there are enough positives to believe the Australian dollar can make further gains against the US dollar, with parity a possibility.

TD Securities suggests New Zealand’s GDP growth for the first quarter of the year could even be negative, so bringing forward rate cuts and weakening the NZ dollar.

It won’t settle the age old argument as to what asset class delivers the best returns but an ASX commissioned report by Russell Investment Group showed shares generated the best real returns over the past 10 and 20 years.

Both the Fed and RBA release the minutes of their last monetary policy meetings in an otherwise quiet week for data.

Recent data on the New Zealand economy have been weaker than expected and has analysts and traders predicting cuts in interest rates and corresponding falls in the Kiwi dollar.

Weekly musings from your editor. Surely the most asked question these days is: is this the beginning or just a fata morgana?