Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news it was all about central banks today as the Bank of Japan deployed its full arsenal while the ECB held its fire.
Expectations were high that the Japanese central bank would announce a major shift in monetary policy, and it duly delivered.
The bank unveiled a series of ‘unconventional’ easing measures aimed at re-inflating their economy. They included the expected 2% inflation target over the next two years; a commitment to open-ended QE; and a scrapping of the bank note rule (the value of Japanese government bonds will now be allowed to exceed the amounts of notes and coins in circulation).
The ECB today said it is ready to cut interest rates if the euro economy deteriorates further, and officials are considering additional measures to boost growth as their debt crisis there enters its fourth year. It also says EU regulators need the power to force losses on bank investors and it wants those rules in place no later than 2015.
It said this as Germany's economy slowed to "near stagnation" last month, while France's recorded its biggest contraction for four years. It is hard to be confident that the Europeans know what they are doing.
In the US, jobless claims hit a four month high.
And China has sent an interesting signal. At its prestigious annual Asian conference, it has ranked John Key higher than Julia Gillard, New Zealand higher than Australia. These sort of things are important to the Chinese. The Aussies noticed too. We are definitely on the Chinese radar these days, and batting way above our weight.
The World Economic Forum has also ranked NZ highly as a tourism destination - and #2 in friendliness, or as they say, "Attitude of population toward foreign visitors". Australia noticed that too.
Gold extended its losses for a third day, nearing a bear market after 12 years of gains. It lost as much as 1% to $1,542 an ounce, down another $10 on the day although it has bounced back a bit in afternoon trade. It has slumped more than 18% from its record close of $US1,900.20 in September 2011, nearing the 20% shift that typically defines a bear market.
The Kiwi dollar starts today basically unchanged from yesterday at 84.0 USc, 80.7 AUc. But the big change it to the Japanese yen which fell more than 3% overnight and helped propel our TWI to 77.3 and and a new record high.
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