Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that US consumer confidence improved to a five month high, helping the Dow to recover from lows.
Also, the Chicago ISM Business Barometer, which surveys purchasing managers, was better than expected in November.
However, US existing house prices were weak in November. The S&P Case Shiller index showed prices rose just 0.6% in September from a year ago, the slowest gain in 8 months.
Across the Tasman, Australian GDP for the September quarter is due to be reported later today and is expected to have risen between 0.2% and 0.5% for the quarter, which is better than expectations earlier in the week that it may have actually contracted.
Australia is New Zealand's largest trading partner and its growth throughout the Global Financial Crisis has helped soften the blow for New Zealand. But Australia's heavily indebted household sector is now coming under pressure as the Reserve Bank there and their banks raise interest rates.
Meanwhile in Europe, the Irish bailout and the German compromise on haircuts for bank bond holders has failed to stop contagion in the European system. Worries are now spreading to Italy and France, which both have high government debt.
Portugese and Spanish bond yields rose to fresh records vs German bond yields as investors worry about the risk that heavily indebted and slow growing economies on the periphery of the Euro zone may have to default and restructure debt, which would wipe out Europe's banks.
Credit default swaps for such debt rose to record highs. The euro fell to a 10 week low and briefly fell below 1.30 to the dollar.
The New Zealand dollar was flat just above 74 USc.
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