Here's my summary of the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am, including news analysts are cutting back sharply their expectations of Chinese growth.
In a major new look at China's prospects, the Conference Board is seeing a sharp slowdown of growth over the next 10 years and a struggle to push through necessary reforms. They also see a 'nose-dive' in Chinese productivity mainly because the big infrastructure investments they are making no longer generate meaningful returns.
This less-than-optimistic review comes as the Chinese leadership is meeting to find ways to maintain the momentum of the past decade.
But one long-term beneficiary the researchers see - foreign firms operating there. Later today there will be a raft of important data releases in China including Q3 GDP and retail sales.
In Hong Kong, the WSJ has a report that says "Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the poor and working class would dominate elections if the government met the demand of student protesters and allowed candidates for the city’s top post to be nominated by the public." It does make you wonder if it is an accurate report, but if so, it is a remarkable insight to what China is afraid of.
In Europe, French ministers are pressing Germany to put in place a three-year, €50 billion stimulus program, but the effort is likely to deepen the confrontation over economic policy between Paris and Berlin because the Germans will only do it without more debt, an impossible constraint for France.
By the way, it has probably been a poor month for icon investor Warren Buffett. Firstly his stake in British retailer Tesco tanked after tales of dodgy accounting, and now his investment in IBM losing him more big bucks as the icon tech giant tosses out its earnings forecasts as its markets move faster than they can respond.
In New York, however, stocks are up in mid afternoon trade.
UST 10yr yields have started the new week virtually unchanged at 2.20%. In New Zealand this morning we start with wholesale swap rates higher, but only back to where they were at the beginning of last week.
The oil price is now under US$83/barrel with the Brent price now just under US$86/barrel.
The gold price is up, now at US$1,244/oz.
We start today with our currency level higher today. The NZD is up to 79.7 USc with some international analysts suggesting it could go 1c higher soon, at 90.7 AUc, and the TWI is at 77.2.
If you want to catch up with all the changes on Friday we have an update here.
The easiest place to stay up with today's event risk is by following our Economic Calendar here »
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.