Mark Lister: Craigs Investment Partners on NZX and global markets taking a dive due to the conflict in the Middle East

Some positive signs from international markets overnight. 

American and European markets tumbled on Friday due to ongoing concerns about the Middle East conflict. 

Asia-Pacific markets followed suit yesterday, with the NZX 50 dropping 3.1%. 

Craigs Investment Partners Investment Director Mark Lister told Mike Hosking trading overnight has been more subdued. 

He says oil prices got up to about $120 a barrel and are now back in the 90s, and the US, UK, and Europe markets are down again, but only slightly. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we're after the races here as epic fury arrives
on the markets and up ends a few key we
saber accounts. Our market fell over three percent yesterday. We're
down four and a half of the month. That Dow
Jones is three and a half down over the past
five days. Mark Lister is investment director for Craig's Investment
Partners and is back with US. Mark, very good morning
to you.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Will today be a little more settled given yesterday seemed
to be an apparition in a series of bad days
because we're in the middle of a war or.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Not, I think on the local sheer market, it will
be a little more settled. Remember that we needed to
play a bit of catch up because of what we
saw on Friday night in the United States when we
were closed. So New Zealand and Australia and Japan woke
up on Monday morning and played a bit of catch
up overnight. It's actually been a little more subdued. Oil

(00:46):
prices obviously got up to one hundred and twenty odd
now they're back in the nineties, so that's pleasing the
US markets down but only slightly similar story in the
UK and Europe. So it might still be a difficult day,
but I suspect we will hold up better than we
did yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Is it all driven by oil? Literally? Oil price of
oil to stock market moves with them.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I believe it is, yes, But the price of oil
is pretty important for the economy globally. Oil is a
component in just about everything we buy. So people are
looking at those oil prices. They don't know when they'll
come back down, they don't know when the disruption will
be relieved, and they're starting to think about inflation and

(01:30):
what the impact is there. What does that mean for
interest rates and therefore what does it mean for growth
and asset prices.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Which was my second part of my question. So oil specific,
you can see the price of oil. What you can't
see is the price of uncertainty of people freaking out
too much.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
No, I don't think they are. Look it is something
we haven't seen in a while, and the disruption looks
like it could hang around for longer than we would like.
So remember, sheer markets have had a pretty good run,
whether it's Japan or emerging markets or Europe, they are
all up pretty strongly. If you go back a week

(02:05):
or two ago, so they probably have had a little
bit further to fall having had such a good run,
and markets are very sensitive about what we'll see on
the inflation front and how central banks will respond.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
What's your time frame trigger in terms of the length
of the war before the RB needs to do something,
say something, and we all start to take this a
little more seriously than perhaps we are at the moment.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, I'm watching next week's announcements really closely. You've got
three big central banks next week. You've got the Reserve
Bank of Australia, the US Federal Reserve, and the European
Central Bank. So watch all of them very closely and
see how they're reacting, what they're thinking about. Our Reserve
Bank has a luxury of not meeting until the eighth
of April, which is about a month away. If this

(02:51):
is still ongoing when they meet in April, then that
won't be looking good. So hopefully we do see things
settle down between and then I still think they're firmly
on hold. But the longer it goes on, the more
upward pressure there is on inflation and the more potential
downward pressure there is on growth, So it puts them

(03:12):
in a really awkward position, and it obviously isn't what
the government wants to see with an election looming either.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
That is true. Appreciate your expertise as always, Mike Listener,
investment director for Craig's Investment Partners.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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