Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news over the weekend that gold and silver prices rose to new highs on growing fears about inflation and a further rise in commodity prices.
There is also talk that China will buy more of the precious metal to diversify its reserves away from the US dollar. See more here at Bloomberg.
Gold rose further over US$1500/oz and silver nearly hit US$50/oz, which was its high set during 1980 when the Bunker-Hunt brothers cornered the market.
Tension continued to rumble in the Middle East where massive demonstrations in Syria were crushed by tanks and troops mowing down protesters. See more here at BBC.
Meanwhile, Canada's Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold miner, has trumped a bid by China's Minmetals for Perth-based Equinox Minerals, bidding US$7.7 billion in cash.
Equinox owns Africa's biggest copper deposit. See more here at Bloomberg.
This demonstrates the hot demand for commodities, which is pushing up currencies such as the New Zealand and Australian dollars.
See the weekly currency review and outlook with Daniel Bell from Hi FX, where the Reserve Bank's rates decision on Thursday and the US Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) are discussed.
The RBNZ is expected to leave the Official Cash Rate on hold until the end of the year.
While the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected to discuss in his first press conference how the world's biggest central bank will end its money printing programme, which is at least partly responsible for the inflation fears and the commodity rally to three year highs.
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