Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news from the US Federal Reserve's latest meeting.
In Bernanke's second last meeting, the Fed has maintained its stimulus packages at US$85 billion per month amid data on the US economy that is not improving fast enough for its liking.
It blamed the Federal government's fiscal hi-jinks for the delays.
It repeated its 6.5% unemployment target and said it want more evidence of growth sustainability before it starts to taper that bond program.
Stocks rose - well, the mid-session declines were reversed on the Fed statement - oil declined, as did gold. And benchmark UST 10yr bond yields also fell.
The US dollar rose on the Fed's non-statement, and it would be wise to check the latest shifts here until things settle down.
In other news, American consumer prices came in pretty much where expected at 1.2%, the smallest year-to-year gain in five months.
The US ADP payroll data suggests hiring there has weakened over the Federal budget stoush period.
In China, their funding woes deepen as bond yields rose to four-month highs. Poor demand for newly issued government debt has triggered selling in a market where a shortage of funds had already pushed borrowing costs higher.
Australia’s big four banks have been told by regulator APRA to limit dividend payouts to investors in order to meet new rules that will require them to hold billions of dollars more capital than expected.
We get the latest RBNZ views on how they see the future OCR track at 9am today. Next Tuesday, the RBA will do its review and the markets are not expecting any change there either - but its Melbourne Cup day then, and Governor Stevens has a history of doing what markets least expect in this review.
The NZ dollar started today at 82.4 USc, 86.8 AUc, and the TWI was at 76.1 - although since the Fed statement, currencies have been on the move.
The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »
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