90 seconds at 9 am: US household debt rises; PBoC bites moneymarkets; BoJ spurs lending; China shuns Australia; NZ$1 = US$0.831 TWI = 77.9

Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news from central banks.

(Updated with Fonterra auction results.)

American household debt rose in the latest quarter by the most since before the recession, a sign they may be nearing the end of a multi-year belt-tightening trend, a report from the New York Fed showed overnight. The New York area manufacturing index was not very positive, but probably weather affected.

Also overnight, China's central bank reported it had removed nearly US$8 bln from money markets in a bid to control the amount of credit in the country's financial system. It is a hawkish move showing they don't like the recent decline in money-market rates in light of the explosive growth of bank lending and other forms of financing in January. The PBoC has backed off tough signals in the past when they seem to create stress, so we will see whether this one is for real. It could have wide ranging impacts though.

The China move kind of compounds the US Feds removal of its stimulus.

But the Bank of Japan surprised markets by going the other way and doubling incentives to spur bank lending, weakening the yen at a time when their economy is showing signs of trouble.

The Bank of England is getting the room to raise interest rates. The UK's inflation rate fell to 1.9% in January, the first time in more than four years that it has gone below the Bank of England's 2% target. With good growth being recorded, the British central bank has been letting it be known that rate rises are on the way.

In Australia, it looks like they are losing their chance to sign a free trade agreement with China. And the prospect of much lower iron ore prices got reinforced yesterday with BHP joining Rio Tinto warning of oversupply in China.

Staying in Australia, the ex-WalMart British boss who shook up Coles and the whole Aussie supermarket industry - and we noticed an echo here from his hard-nosed tactics - has been promoted upstairs out of Coles and into owner Wesfarmers corporate suite. Bunnings, Officeworks, Target and KMart are other Wesfarmers businesses.

This morning Westpac has introduced a 5.95% 2 year special mortgage rate, and cut its three year carded rate. Both moves matched the market. The Co-op Bank raised its one year rate and is no longer the market leader in that term - SBS now is.

Farm sales have started out strongly in 2014, with January volumes up 50% on the same month from the past two years.

Overnight we saw falls in the UST 10yr benchmark bond rate to 2.72%. We saw the oil price rise as the WTI benchmark gets closer to the Brent price, and gold is now at US$1,323 an ounce. The production data for 2013 was also out overnight and it saw a 5% rise in mine output, but a big fall in recycling probably due to low 2013 prices.

The Fonterra auction overnight saw prices fall in US dollar terms by 1.2% and the fall was even larger in NZ terms, down 4.0%.

The NZ dollar has fallen overnight and starts today at 83.1 USc, 91.9 AUc and the TWI is at 77.9.

If you want to catch up with all the changes on Monday, we have an update here.

The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »