Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 8 am, including news mainly from Australia today.
Late yesterday afternoon the RBA decided to hold its cash rate at 2.5% but the tone of its announcement moved markets. It signaled an end to rate cuts.
And by de-emphasising its concern about the high Aussie dollar, markets took the signal and bid their currency up. It was the best performer overnight and the Kiwi has risen with it.
The Chinese are buying Aussie iron ore in a big way again.
However, these events are not removing the need to readjust the Federal Government budget. Their Treasurer has signaled that many big cuts are on the way.
Unemployment will be the focus here today. However, Roy Morgan have released their wider and more up-to-date survey of unemployment and they find the New Zealand rate steady at 8.5%. (This compares with the equivalent Aussie rate of 11.3% and rising, and its highest since 1995.) They also survey underemployment. The official StatsNZ data for December will be out at 10:45am this morning.
In New York, equity markets are moving higher again after some down sessions last week. Asian stock markets have been hit hard though, and Australian equities suffered a A$25 billion value fall yesterday. The NZX fall was pretty modest by comparison.
Oil and gold prices marked time, and the benchmark UST 10yr yields inched up to 2.62%.
The overnight Fonterra auction saw prices on hold at their high levels, up a marginal 0.5% overall. Butter was the star performer again, although there were gains for whole milk powder prices too.
The NZ dollar starts today up nearly 1 USc from this time yesterday at 81.9 USc, down against the Aussie 91.7 AUc and the TWI is now at 77.4.
If you want to catch up with all the changes yesterday, we have an update here.
The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »
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