kowenicki said: Kiss of death. Sony share price touched a long time record low today. Perhaps I am ahead of the market makers in seeing the light from the current data.

At this point you just want to be right because you can pat yourself on the back.

I am worried of a delay on the US working out the fiscal cliff quickly because Beohner (pronounced boner) is still the leader of a largely Republican dominated US House. Though the Democrats have gained ground in the Senate and and retained the White House, the political picture remains the same as it was two years ago. The House has little reason other than the good of the country to cooperate with the President Obama. The last go at this only resulted in a long standing stalemate that pissed off the entire country. My outlook is that the dollar would more likely fall if it is not resolved soon than it is to gain immediately.

I am worried of a delay on the US working out the fiscal cliff quickly because Beohner (pronounced boner) is still the leader of a largely Republican dominated US House. Though the Democrats have gained ground in the Senate and and retained the White House, the political picture remains the same as it was two years ago. The House has little reason other than the good of the country to cooperate with the President Obama. The last go at this only resulted in a long standing stalemate that pissed off the entire country. My outlook is that the dollar would more likely fall if it is not resolved soon than it is to gain immediately.

As far as the Republicans are concerned, the key sticking point is the Norquist Pledge, which a lot of major Republicans and almost all Tea Partiers have signed, declaring that they will never agree to raise government revenues by one cent (that is NO tax rate raises forever, but also NO closures of loopholes or deductions, ever) This makes them fundamentally unable to govern, because even the most hardened fiscal conservative who hasn't signed that lunatic's pledge will now that revenue increases are sometimes necessary.

The point of hope here is that several senate republicans have been seen backing off from the Norquist pledge in the past couple weeks.

And yet, bizarrely, predictions are that the reserve bank will increase interest rates here (late) next year, and that would only push up the NZ dollar even more worsening our trade deficit. The NZ dollar is subject to rather sudden downshifts. There was a time when UK pensioners were on to a winner by moving here because it instantly tripled the value of their pension while only increasing cost of living by a relatively small amount. What cost 1 pound in GB cost about $1.50 here. Things aren't quite the same now. It does make gaming consoles cheaper though. Really hoping our dollar doesn't tank before the rest of the next gen launches.

Even a 0.25% lift in interest rates in Europe / the USA would be significant for how it's interpretted: real economic growth is being experienced and things are well and truly on the mend. Especially in the USA a small lift in interest rates would see people starting to go back to the dollar. Hopefull that lot start putting up interest rates at about the same time, or before we do.