Quick Bite: Are investors becoming numb to global shocks?

In this quick bite, Infometrics Chief Executive Brad Olsen explains why market reactions in 2025 feel different. Despite wild volatility, geopolitical conflict, and patchy economic data, investors aren’t flinching like they used to.

We explore why dips aren’t sparking panic, how business sentiment in Aotearoa is shifting, and why job ads staying flat could be more telling than official employment figures.

This quick bite is from our previous episode 'Is economic recovery stalling'.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to a share these podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's interesting as well, right with the volatility that's come through,
because I mean, you look at some of the days
we've had this year, like wild wild times, and watching
what would you know previously have been a couple of
weeks or months of movement happen, you know, within seconds
or minutes. Has been quite hard to stomach sometimes, and
even amongst that, actually it looks like people have been

(00:25):
buying in a bit more. You know, I'm not going
to say everyone buying the dip, but I think there's
been the sort of recognition from a lot of people that, hey,
sometimes that the markets have been I think maybe over
correcting or a bit overly worried about things and then
seem to come back the other way. Now, let's be real.
I also worry a little bit that the markets sometimes
undercook or don't forward cast as much of the challenging

(00:47):
conditions and sort of take good expected economic news and
sort of just run with it. But what was fascinating
I think is also in recent times, when you had
conflict in the Middle East, we've been expecting likes of
oil prices, some of those other come on to spike
up sharply there wasn't anything. In fact, in terms of
actual market action. I think most of the US market
numbers actually went higher despite some of those commodities starting

(01:10):
to show pressure. Now, I do wonder if everyone's become
a little bit numb in a sense to just how
many of these big geopolitical things come through. And people
are now starting to look a little bit more at
the numbers and going, Okay, yep, some people are expecting
certain things, but until I actually start to see them
that expectation move to reality. I'm going to look at

(01:30):
what's actually right in front of me, what's actually being
reported here and now, and move with that. And I
think that's again, that's quite a different market than what
we've seen previously. When you jumped at shadows, you jump
to any sort of little tibit of information. Now people
seem to be not only holding back but going look,
when there is actual real information. I'm going to work
on that. I'm going to pile in a bit more
and I'm not going to react nearly as much to

(01:51):
sort of just some of that that broader stuff in
the expectation piece. That that's a shift.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Let's jump back to new Zealand and how businesses here
are feeling. This been a number of surveys out in
recent weeks. They were looking at a recovery. But what
would you say, where's sentiment now?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Sentiments okay? And I guess I say okay, because depending
on how you look at it, in some areas, the
economy still looks weak. Forward expectations still don't look great,
but confidence about what's sort of coming up next is
still improving, if you will, And I think that's again
probably indicative of where the economy is moving. It's improving
slowly but surely, but it's sort of a sluggish one.

(02:29):
People are still worried in different sectors about how they'll go.
You know, you look at the likes of the construction
sector again pretty tough in many respects, Retail a whole
lot more, mixed, manufacturing a whole lot more mixed, agricultural
primary sector in a good spot. But I do think
as well, second half of this year, you do have
people that are refixing onto those lone mortgage rates. Everyone's
trying to act a little bit more limited in terms

(02:52):
of their investment intentions and similar there seems to be
this view of look, yes, there might well be better
things to come, but I'm going to be very careful
with my money. As a bit business, I'm going to
be careful with my hiring, and from a household perspective,
everyone seems to be more careful with their cash too.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, jobs, I would have thought they would be coming
back a little bit by now, but the figures aren't
really telling us that.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Every time we get monthly job numbers, they seem to
show a little bit of a slight tick up, but
then that almost always gets revised again within the next
couple of months. And the more interesting indicator in recent
times has been the number of job ads that are
out there, you know, the number of job opportunities that
you can apply for in seasonally adjusted terms. They've basically
been flat now for just about a year now. That's

(03:34):
flat at sort of levels that we haven't seen since
about twenty thirteen or so, so it's been a long time.
The fact that they're flat is good relative to the
idea that they could still be falling, but it also
says that if they've been flat for nearly a year now,
there's not really any real trend of them starting to
pick up any sort of momentum, and you do just
get this feeling again from businesses that they are in

(03:54):
this sort of holding pattern where they would love to
employ more people. They just can't see the sort of
expectations for really strong things ahead enough for you to
start to hire a whole bunch more. You're seeing that
as well, a lot more young people that are becoming unemployed.
That's the group who are often losing their jobs, some
of them heading for Australia and similar So some of
those trends I think are fairly well established at this point.

(04:17):
We also haven't seen any real trend that they are
starting to improve any quicker than we might have expected,
in fact, that in most cases they're taking a whole
lot longer.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
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Speaker 2 (04:32):
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