News and Opinion, sponsored by RaboPlus

By Danica Hampton

A busy last 24 hours of data and releases, something for everyone it seems and currency markets on the whole marginally firmer than yesterday’s opening levels. Best performers are the commodity block and the NZD follows their lead to open this morning at the US 63.4 cent level, the NZD TWI at 60.0

Locally we had RBNZ’s Bollard talk up the NZ economy’s likelihood to revive faster than its trading partners, though there was caution in his message that this might simply encourage NZ household’s to spend and borrow again and lose the opportunity to rebalance the economy. Greater weight though was given to the NAB’s Australian Business surveys, which saw Australian Business Conditions climb to a 9 month high of -2 and Business Confidence print a positive outcome of +4, the first positive print since late ’07.
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The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has published a research paper estimating that the potential economic impact from the Swine Flu would be less than 0.6% of GDP, which is significantly less than the 1-2% hit forecast by Westpac last month.

Here is the full release below the jump.

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Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with ASB Bank. US stocks were up more than 2.5% in late trade on hopes the worst of the economic recession may be over and signs the Swine flu is not as virulent or fatal as it was initially in Mexico. Meanwhile Fiat is looking to take over Opel and join it up with the remnants of Chrysler to create the world’s second biggest car maker. I think it will be a disaster. These big cross border car mergers almost never work. Just ask BMW, which bought Rover and lost billions of euros, and Daimler Benz, which bought Chrysler and lost tens of billions of euros. (more…)

Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including the NZ dollar dipping after the confirmation New Zealand has Swine flu, Lane Walker Rudkin being put into receivership with the potential loss of 470 jobs and Fisher & Paykel Appliances being given a one month reprieve by its bankers.

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Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9am, including news of 149 deaths in Mexico as the Swine Flu pandemic spreads and the annnouncement of a rescue plan for General Motors that will see the US government take control of 89% of the company. (more…)

Bernard Hickey looks at the potential economic impact from the Swine flu outbreak in this economic weather report. The best measure is the impact of SARS, which was relatively limited and fleeting in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, although global tourism may be hit more this time because of the global recession. New Zealand may also suffer more because of its relatively high profile as an outpost for the outbreak early in the story. (more…)