Christoph Schumacher

Those interest rates have another side effect.

It strengthens our Kiwi dollar, which is good for us private consumers because imports become cheaper, but it hits our exporters.

And it's these guys we want strong when the economy slows down, right?

So there's a counter effect here.

New Zealand is doing okay, but if higher interest rates lead to a stronger Kiwi dollar, we will lose out on export, which again slows our economy down.

But overall...

I think New Zealand is well enough prepared compared to other countries anyway.

definitely the inflation rate, because this will dictate how fast the reserve bank has to act.

And that helps you to anticipate where the OCR will go and might help you in your decisions about fixing long-term, how long, how quickly, and so on.

So from a macroeconomic perspective, it is definitely your inflation rate.

How quickly is inflation rising?

Is it settling?

Will we still see spikes?

And check out your GDP.

See how the economy is doing, how strongly it will slow down.

We've had recession periods last year.

We've just had small growth.

See if it continues.

If it doesn't,

that's definitely the red flag.