Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news of slowdowns in a couple of our main trading markets.
In the US, retail sales for January were sluggish. The extended cold snap is sucking the momentum out of consumer behaviour and those sales fell 0.4%, more than was forecast.
American manufacturing and trade inventories rose in December.
(As an aside, President Obama's signature healthcare program seems to be gaining traction - more than 1.1 million people signed up to it in January alone.)
In Australia, their jobless rate has shot up to its highest level in more than a decade, underscoring the weakness in their labour market. It reached 6.0% in data released late yesterday, higher than was expected. It was actually 6.4% on a non seasonally adjusted basis - on that same basis New Zealand has a rate of 5.9%.
Their participation rate dropped to 64.2%, the lowest its been since 2004. (New Zealand's participation rate is 69.3%.) There are now 773,000 Australians classed as unemployed in these official figures, its highest level since 1998.
The latest market survey of dairy prices shows that milk powder prices remain stable at their high level, but butter and cheese continue their rise. Good for Fonterra and their particular product mix. In fact for the first time in a year, cheese prices now yield more per tonne than WMP.
And it is not only dairy prices that are rising. Iron ore prices are on the up too. Oil prices are mixed again with the convergence of American prices with international levels continuing. Brent prices are down, WTI prices are up. Gold took another jump overnight and is now trading just shy of US$1,300/oz. It's been a good run in 2014 for the yellow metal.
US equities are up again today, building on yesterday's strong gains.
The NZ dollar has risen marginally against most currencies overnight and it starts today at 83.4 USc, it is up strongly against the Aussie though at 92.8 AUc and the TWI is at 78.4.
If you want to catch up with all the changes yesterday, we have an update here.
The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »
3 Comments
First to make a comment....
DC, the metric to watch re ObamaCare is the number of successful, paid-up OC users, versus the number of formerly insured people whose insurance has been cancelled, because the policies don't conform to OC mandates like contraception for pensioners.
That metric is assuredly still in negative territory: Megan McArdle (writing for Bloomberg) has the latest about the endless stream of constitutionally unsound 'fixes' to patch up unintended consequences....and Megan was forthright in an earlier article about the chances of the whole schemozzle actually working as designed.
Well it cant be any worse than the old system which was one huge con, you paid and when you needed it found the Ins company cancelled it on a whim. You cant class hat as anymore dis-functional than you can get.
The metric to watch is the health of the nation and care for those who couldnt afford it, or had complaints that invalidaded thier policy.
Oh as as in para 2 the amount of bankruptcies due to having to pay healthcae bills falling.
Oh and stop cherry picking.
regards
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