Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news that a summit over the weekend in Chicago of the leaders of the world's 8 largest economies failed to make any progress in solving the European debt crisis.
The leaders issued a statement at the end of the summit saying they wanted to keep Greece in the Euro, but that Greece needed to meet its committments. This is essentially sticking with the German line that Greece needs to stick to its austerity diet and just grin and bear its economic pain.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also restated her position that Greek voters needed to vote for the austerity package in elections on June 17 or else. Some had hoped that other leaders at the G8 may have been able to push Merkel towards some sort of compromise where Germany either allowed a renegotiation of the bailout or encouraged the European Central Bank to help Greece and other Southern European banks cope with a flight of euro deposits out of Italy and Spain and into Germany and Switzerland.
The focus now goes onto elections in Greece on June 17, where pro-bailout parties have been making a come-back, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Meanwhile Facebook's IPO faceplanted late on Friday night, closing barely above its IPO price, but still valued at more than 100 times earnings. Facebook's earnings and revenue growth seems to have stalled as it has yet to find a way to put ads on its mobile platform and it can't get into the world's biggest internet market -- China. See more here at Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said over the weekend China would focus more on economic growth than containing inflation, raising hopes that China was about to ease policy to boost growth in Australasia's largest trading partner. See more here at Bloomberg.
The comments came after fresh data showing falling Chinese house prices and rising unsold stockpiles of new cars. See more here at Bloomberg.
China is the key player for New Zealanders to watch in the gathering economic storm coming from Europe. China was able to turn its economy around quickly in late 2008 and early 2009 after the Lehman collapse slammed global trade. The initial signs this time around is that China may not be able to turn around its economy so quickly again, given inflation pressures and a fractured leadership transition.
The New Zealand dollar weakened over the weekend to be under 76 USc at 75.7 USc in morning trade.
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