Daily FNArena News - FYI

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?

The UK Daily Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard really knows how to spoil a party.

Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan brings down his first federal budget on Tuesday night while the US, EU and UK all learn April CPIs.

Weekly musings from your editor. Banks are pushing valuation limits and resources stocks have reached multiples not seen for years. What is the outlook for this market?