Tag Archives: Market Watch

Gym Mats

Market Watch Jigsaw Gym Mats

The market recently has been all over the place. It is difficult to predict anymore whether it is going up or down. It used to be (at least for a while), that is it went up before lunch you would expect it to retreat a bit after. Or if it went up one day it would come down a bit the other. These days it either up, up and up, or down, down and down. If you are trying to predict the movement there is just no telling where it will go. Even in the volatility that has been Donald Trumps presidency it has really gotten difficult to read the markets.

One of the bright spots has been the Aussie dollar. It has been pretty stable and has tracked between 67c and 68c. It might go a bit above that range at times or a bit below, but generally it has remained pretty consistent over the past few months. This has bode well for jigsaw gym mats. With the price of the AUD steady so too has the price of gym mats, particularly jigsaw gym mats, remained untouched. The price of tatami and MMA mats have had to go up again, but that was mainly due to them being artificially low. They have had to come up in price to improve the margins on them as the previous prices were unsustainable.

The RBA chief announced today that interest rates are unlikely to go down any further. This has spooked the market again evidently which can account for their slide. It also explains why the AUD peaked above 68c which is a level higher than usual for the recent period. Jigsaw gym mat pricing has remained the same but if there is a sustained lift in the AUD then we can expect a drop in pricing, this would include for all gym mats. One would also conclude that this would be the case for all imported goods which are predominantly calculated in USD.

If you are thinking about going on a holiday, and not just buying jigsaw gym mats, then this should help you also. This would be for people going all over the place and not just the United States of America. Although not all places take USD, and lift in the AUD would be seen also in other currencies.

Well that is the market news for now. You can expect that there will be another update pretty soon as I post these updates pretty often. Generally they come when there has been a major development in the market which necessitates a new report.

Market Watch AUD and Jigsaw Mats

Market Watch AUD and Gym Mats

As Josip Broz Tito once said, “If Bosnia is strong then all of Yugoslavia is strong”. In the same way it could be said that if the AUD is strong all of Australia is strong. But while we remain strong in the cricket and rugby our economy is not strong. And when the economy is not strong than the AUD suffers. That has been the case as the AUD lost another 30 points against the USD. This was after American consumer confidence surprisingly jumped, to an eight-month high. This is in contrast to Australia where consumer confidence is low and the retail sector is suffering.

The American markets are booming since realising that the cost of borrowing will fall after 2.25% worth of interest rate increases since December 2015. Since consumerism contributes 70% of US GDP, this is a welcome occurrence. This positive sentiment is reflected in the stock market and retails sales. While the Australia stock market is also rising the same can’t be said about retail spending which is in a slump. Also further falls in the AUD may cause more damage to consumer sentiment as they realise things aren’t as good as they should be.

The sale of gym mats has held up though. Even today we got a significant enquiry from one of the major rugby leagues looking at purchasing a large quantity of gym mats for one of their overseas operations. Similarly gym mats sales have been going from strength to strength as Southern Cross Mats and Ezy Mats (our parent company) expand market share. This has been mainly due to word or mouth about our excellent range of gym mats which include:

  • Jigsaw Mats
  • MMA Mats
  • Tatami Mats
  • Yoga Mats
  • Folding Mats
  • Gymnastics Mats
  • EVA Mats

In fact this is one of the largest ranges of gym mats in the southern hemisphere.

Thus far the depreciation of the AUD has not had an adverse effect on gym mat pricing. This will hopefully persist into the future.