Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with BNZ, including news the Bank of England and the European Central Bank both held their official interest rates at record lows of 0.5% and 1.0% respectively.
Both are battling to restart stalled economies.
However, the European Central Bank chief Jean Claude Trichet said people shouldn't be quite so pessimistic about the European economy as the latest data didn't support that pessimism. He also pointed out the European Central Bank hadn't been buying as many bonds to support the market in recent weeks.
The International Monetary Fund upgraded its global growth forecast to 4.6% from 4.2%, but warned that Europe was still fragile and it saw a slowdown in the developed economies later this year.
This helped lift the Dow 1.2% overnight and the New Zealand dollar rose to almost 71 USc in morning trade. The Australian dollar also rose after very strong employment data for the June quarter. Australia's economy created 104,500 jobs in the June quarter, the most in any one quarter in four years. This helped drag the unemployment rate down to 4.1%.
However, this is a double edged sword for New Zealand, given a healthy Australian economy will boost demand for our exports and tourism, but also boost demand for migrants to leave New Zealand and drag down demand for housing.
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