Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news the Chinese housing market may be deflating.
But first, the biggest sector of the American economy, services, picked up in April, powered by gains in orders and sales that were markedly above expectations. This data comes hard on the heels of expanding manufacturing in the US.
Across the Atlantic, the European Commission trimmed its expectations, forecasting the 18-nation euro area will expand 1.6% this year and 1.7% in 2015, compared with a previous forecast of 1.8%.
Here's an interesting twist: Iran has said overnight that it is ready to ship Europe large volumes of natural gas to replace any cutoff by Russia. The old 'wedge' diplomacy at work. It surprised me that Iran would back-door its 'friend' in Russia.
Another overnight twist comes from China where investment bank Nomura says China's great real-estate bust has now begun. A combination of a huge oversupply of housing and a shortage of developer financing is producing a downturn that could drive China's GDP to less than 6% this year, it says.
In Australia, the tactics of supermarket buyers are about to get a very public airing. In "stunning" documents lodged with the Federal Court late yesterday, the workings of one of the biggest supermarket group's were laid bare, targeting suppliers for A$30 million in straight cash payments for store access. Leading the drive at Coles was a manager who has now been promoted to head the business.
In New York in late afternoon trade, equities are level-pegging, marginally higher, gold is higher at US$1,310/oz, oil is lower, and UST 10yr benchmark bond yields rose about 2 bps and are currently 2.61%. There may be a more fundamental reason why long bond yields may not rise.
We start today with the NZ dollar up even further overnight, now at 86.8 USc, also up against the Aussie at 93.6 AUc and the TWI is just a fraction under 80.7.
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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