Here's our summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news that there has been a big fall this morning in dairy prices.
Fonterra's globaldairytrade platform is reporting a 10% fall in prices at the latest auction. Whole milk powders, cheese, and casein all had significant drops of much more than 10%. Skim milk powder fell less.
This is a reality check for dairy commodities, and they are now moving very much like other commodities.
Having said that, oil raced up sharply overnight although it has fallen back in more recent trades. Stocks are up also quite sharply, the Dow over 13,100 and 3% higher than this time last week.
Not only have corporate results reported been good, the IMF is getting some big commitments through for its backstop fighting fund, and Spanish bond yields have eased back overnight and are now below 6%.
The world economy will grow 3.5% this year, up from January's forecast for 3.3%, the IMF said today in its World Economic Outlook.
For 2013, it predicted growth of 4.1%, up from 4.0%. It also boosted its outlook for the US economy, predicting expansion of 2.1% this year and 2.4% next year.
Across the ditch, the Aussies are noticing a shift of jobs to New Zealand with Woolworths being the latest to move staff here.
Sky high labour costs, inflexible labour rules and low productivity are all hurting Australian businesses and many of these factors are not as acute here so we have an advantage. The exchange rate helps as well.
Today, the New Zealand dollar starts the day at AU$0.7910 and US$0.8230.
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