Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news our currency strengthened across the board overnight.
This follows a restart in the rise of the Chinese yuan, which yesterday reached an all-time high against the US dollar. For more than three months, Chinese authorities had halted its gradual rise as uncertainty grew about the state of the Chinese economy. But now the gloom has seemed to lift, the appreciating trend has restarted.
Our currency rose overnight too, and is ending the week up 100 bps on the TWI, following last week's rise of 200 bps. We are even rising against the Aussie - almost back to 88 AUc - and the Yuan - almost back to 5.0.
Yesterday's MPS which indicated inflation is expected to rise resulting in OCR increases next year underpinned the currency direction. The generally rosy economic data is driving expectations that New Zealand will be among the first developed nations to raise interest rates since the global financial crisis.
In the US, initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped - but only for technical reasons, so markets are ignoring the data. And the number of mortgage foreclosures fell sharply.
In Europe, they have brought about 130 of their biggest banks directly under the supervision of the ECB, and brought the ECB under the European Parliament oversight; these changes have taken a long time to be made, and they sideline national banking regulators.
Australian unemployment rose to 5.8% in August, near the 5.9% post-financial-crisis peak, underscoring the challenge for the incoming Abbott government as their economy continues to slow.
Gold has fallen another US$35 and is now at US$1,325/oz, oil is up, and US Treasury 10yr bond yields have fallen today, and are now down to 2.88%. The Dow is unchanged so far today.
The NZ dollar is ending the week at 81.4 USc, 87.9 AUc, and the TWI is at 76.5.
The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »
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