Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news of a continuing environmental crisis.
China and especially Beijing is choking on very bad smog again. Despite closing dozens of factories, halting outdoor construction and sending teams to inspect factories, Beijing yesterday entered its fifth straight day of its latest bout of intense air pollution, with city officials forecasting the smog to last for at least another three days.
In the US, the flash services index disappointed markets today with the index coming in at 52.7 and well below the 56.7 expected. It was the weakest 'services' performance for four months. There was a buildup of unfinished work in February said to be weather related; forward orders grew strongly however.
Euro area inflation in January is on the radar, especially as ECB boss Draghi has said there is no risk of deflation - a view markets doubt. The January EU CPI came in at 0.8% pa, down from 2.0% a year earlier. There is a wide range in the eurozone however - in Greece and Cyprus there certainly is deflation, whereas in Britain inflation is still close to 2% pa.
Later today locally, the RBNZ will release its own survey of inflation expectations.
HSBC has become the first British bank to say how it plans to sidestep EU limits on bonus payments for its senior managers. It gave its CEO £8 mln, and that was after its results disappointed the market with less cost cutting and lower revenues than expected. It looks like the way around the EU bonus rules is simply to pay senior managers more.
The extent of the shift by investors seeking dividend yield was highlighted overnight by a new tally released in London pointing out that global dividends exceeded US$1 trillion in 2013. Very low interest rates have clearly shifted the focus of investors. There's been more than a 40% rise in the value of dividends since 2009, but in 2013 their growth was a low 2.8%.
Equities are up strongly today in New York (ignoring the services data), as are US oil and gold (which is approaching US$1,340/oz), but curiously the Brent oil benchmark is down.
The NZ dollar has jumped half a cent overnight along with the AU dollar and starts today at 83.4 USc, 92.2 AUc and the TWI is at 78.2.
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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