Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news European leaders remain divided on the eve of a summit supposed to agree and announce a plan to save the European financial system.
Germany said it was opposed to the European Central Bank buying more Spanish and Italian government bonds to prop up the market. See more here at Reuters.
Italy's cabinet is divided over demands from France and Germany that it extend its retirement age to 67 from 65.
Deals have yet to be done to agree the size of the losses banks will take on Greek bonds. See more here at Bloomberg.
The details of how an expanded EFSF (European Financial Stability Fund) will operate and be financed have also not been finalised.
Also, the details of how Europe's major banks would be capitalised have yet to be agreed. The banks are reluctant to raise new capital and are instead talking about calling in more than 1 trillion euros of loans.
A finance ministers meeting designed to come up with the details was cancelled at the last minute. UK Prime Minister David Cameron canceled a visit to New Zealand to attend the summit.
US stocks fell 2% overnight on worries about the European crisis and after US consumer confidence slumped to its worst levels since March 2009. See more here at Bloomberg.
The New Zealand dollar fell in line with these reduced appetites for riskier currencies and worries about what the European crisis might mean for global economic growth and commodity prices.
It fell to 79.7 USc from as high as 81 USc yesterday. See the BNZ currencies report here on our site.
Weaker than expected Consumer Price Index Inflation mean that economists now see the Reserve Bank holding the Official Cash Rate at 2.5% until June next year rather than March next year. See Alex Tarrant's article here.
Fonterra's decision to lower its forecast milk payout also weighed on sentiment. See more here.
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(Updated with US market close and links)
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