Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news overnight that the New Zealand dollar fell under 70 USc after speculation emerged that Japanese authorities would intervene to push the Yen down versus the US dollar to protect its exporters.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars rose against the Yen, but fell against a newly strengthened US dollar.
There is a flight to safety going on in financial markets as investors shy away from the stressed European financial system and the struggling US economy. Many are flooding into the Yen and the Swiss Franc, which hit a record high overnight. The New Zealand dollar also tends to suffer when financial markets worry about risk.
There were more concerns about the European financial system after Ireland's credit rating was downgraded overnight because of worries about the public costs of bailing out failing Irish banks.
Meanwhile, the economic news out of America continues to deteriorate. Durable goods orders in the world's largest economy rose just 0.3% in July, well below economists' forecasts for a rise of around 3%.
New home sales also fell 12.4% when economists had expected no fall.
Also, former Merrill Lynch chief economist David Rosenberg, has said the American economy is now in a depression rather than a recession.
Rosenberg calls current economic conditions "a depression, and not just some garden-variety recession," and notes that any good news both during the initial 1929-33 recession and the one that began in 2008 triggered "euphoric response."
"Such is human nature and nobody can be blamed for trying to be optimistic; however, in the money management business, we have a fiduciary responsibility to be as realistic as possible about the outlook for the economy and the market at all times," he said.
Back in New Zealand, Allied Farmers has announced it has been forced to renegotiate a NZ$16.9 million loan with its bank Westpac.
It faces having to repay loans of NZ$70 million to its offshoot Allied Nationwide, which was put into receivership last week.
It will struggle to survive as it scrambles to renegotiate or repay these loans while also raising fresh capital from shareholders.
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