Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news Hurricane Sandy, the Atlantic Ocean's biggest ever tropical storm, is bearing down on a swathe of the East Coast that houses 60 million people and a large chunk of the world's largest economy. See more here at Bloomberg.
The US stock and bond markets were closed overnight for the second day running, the first such consecutive daily closure for weather since 1888. The markets could be closed for as long as four days. See more here at Bloomberg.
Catastrophe insurance analysts Eqecat estimate the Hurricane could cause US$20 billion worth of damage, with as many as 10 million people set to lose power for days and tens of thousands of flights cancelled.
The National Weather Service has dubbed Hurricane "Frankenstorm" and the crew of the replica of the HMS Bounty, which was built for the 1962 movie 'Mutiny on the Bounty and visits New Zealand, abandoned ship off the North Carolina coast overnight. See more here at TallShipBounty.org.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Israel surprised markets overnight by cutting its official cash rate by 0.25% to 2% and imposing loan to value ratio limits on home loans to try to stop the rate cut further fueling a housing boom that has pushed up house prices 20% in the last 18 months.
The Bank of Israel is imposing a loan limit of 70% of value for owner-occupied homes, a limit of 75% for first home buyers and a limit of 50% for investment properties. See more here at Bloomberg.
The New Zealand dollar was slightly lower overnight. See more here in Mike Jones' currencies report on our site.
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9 Comments
interesting about bank of Israel... why can't our RBNZ do a similar thing? seems so simple and logical... stop housing booming and lower dollar at the same time, win win. Be interesting to see how well simple action works (as opposed to the complex inaction practiced here).
Watch the Fonterra PR spin machine go in to top gear on this.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/7881068/Farmers-seek-to-lock-in…
I hear there are some big milk solid backers on this. Not at all what Sir Henry will want to see succeed.
hehehe, yes of course it will....
;]
Oh wait I wonder what the global effects will be, say our insurance policies will be going up as the battered re-insurers seek to repair thier balances....
Storm is also over to the great lakes? I wonder what the food crop losses will be.
regards
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