Bernard Hickey details the key news over the weekend in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that Mike Pero Mortgages and Mike Pero himself are launching a real estate company that will charge commission of 2.95%, rather than the 3.95% typically charged.
The new agency group aims to launch in March or April.
Meanwhile, in Asia, Japan is set to formally relinquish the title of the world's second largest economy later today when fresh GDP figures are released.
Japan will lose the title to China, which is on track to surpass America within 10-15 years at great growth rates. See more here at BBC.
Meanwhile in Europe, the EU and IMF have criticised Greece's slow reforms and called on it to tighten its budget.
The Greeks reacted by saying the EU and IMF shouldn't interfere.
In China, state authorities plan to launch a new mergers and acquisitions watchdog to check that foreign takeovers and purchases do not endanger state security.
Also in late Friday trade, the US dollar strengthened on growing concerns about Portugal's ability to repay its debt. See more here at Bloomberg.
The New Zealand dollar weakened to 75.9 USc.
2 Comments
The articles by Micheal Lewis at Vanity Fair about Iceland, Greece and Ireland should be part of the school curriculum.
What's most striking is how so much of it is directly applicable to this country.
The people here were no less stupid, greedy or gullible than those in the crashing Euro economies.
About the only excuse the foolish NZ "investors" can fall back on is that they are essentially uneducated people.
Stupid is as stupid does, but rapacious greed doesn't help, either.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?currentPage=all (Greece)
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland200904 (Iceland. Full article here: http://depts.washington.edu/teclass/articles472/Wall%20Street%20on%20the%20Tundra%20%20vanityfair.pdf )
The old girl must have been on about Yertle and Mac:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-12-2011-pensions…
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.