Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news that US retail sales barely rose in January as tax increases and higher petrol prices held back spending, suggesting the US economy got little help from consumers at the start of the year. 

But a key Federal Reserve voting member claimed the US prospects are now 'bullish for growth".

President Obama's State of the Nation speech said America will push to complete the Trans-Pacific free trade deal, and he opened up a new front restarting a push for a Trans Atlantic free trade deal.

In Europe, hard on the heals of the big job losses at Barclays, ING Bank has announced job cuts of 2,400 staff. That takes the total staff laid off at ING to over 7,500 in a bit over a year.

Staying in Europe, the British central bank has said Britain faces a further bout of inflation and a muted economic recovery, and said officials will look through the volatility in prices to keep nurturing growth where they can.

They called the rise in inflation an 'own goal' by policy makers.

And in Switzerland, authorities there have ordered their banks to increase their capital backing for real estate loans. The Swiss action is in response to a local property price boom.

Across the Tasman, National Australia Bank has become the latest lender there to cut its fixed home loan rates, lowering its one-year fixed home loan by 0.15 percentage points to 5%.

And CBA has opened the door to the possibility of interest rate cuts outside any moves by the RBA after the company posted a record half-yearly profit. Their NZ division, ASB, actually had a small profit decline.

The kiwi dollar starts today at 84.1 USc, 81.3 AUc, and the TWI is at 76.3.