Here's my summary of the key news overnight to keep you up-to-date over these holidays.
The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week and job cuts declined sharply in December, suggesting their labour market is tightening. and employers seem to be holding on to seasonal hires.
Across the Atlantic, the euro has fallen to a fresh nine-year low against the US dollar, in part because of a surprise fall in German factory orders.
An American criminal investigation into how Swiss banks helped wealthy Americans hide their money has had an unexpected side effect: shaking out scores of tax cheats among the Swiss themselves. China has a massive tax-cheating problem too.
In England, their central bank has held its policy rate unchanged at 0.5% and maintained its £375 bln stimulus program in an overnight decision.
In eastern Europe the Belarus central bank has hiked its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2011 - raising it to an eye-popping 25% - and adopted other emergency measures to stabilise their financial system as the country is rocked by the crisis in its neighbour and 'friend', Russia.
In Argentina, police and tax agents have raided HSBC headquarters in Buenos Aires following an investigation of than 4,000 non-declared accounts that Argentineans allegedly own in Switzerland.
In China, Panasonic Corp has said it plans to transfer most of its domestic appliance production in China back to Japan starting in the March, a response to the weaker yen and a jump in labour costs in China. It is one of several Japan-based companies making such a move.
In Australia, building consents are continuing at a high level with almost 19,000 being approved in November and close to the highest level in almost twelve years. We get our own local building consent data for November in a Stats NZ release later this morning.
Low oil prices extended their run overnight with the benchmark US price is now just under US$49/barrel and the Brent benchmark is just under US$51/barrel. There is one part of the oil industry benefiting from low prices - the explorers.The cost of drilling rigs is expected to drop by about 40% as the market adjusts to lower spending on projects. We might see many more rigs around New Zealand given their sudden availability.
Gold is unchanged overnight, now at US$1,214/oz.
UST benchmark 10yr bond yields have remained low in trading on Wall Street today and are currently at 2.01%. Today the New Zealand 1-5 swap curve is now just 21 bps and the 2-10 is just 18 bps.
The NZ dollar has kept on rising and is now at 78.3 USc, against the Aussie it is now at 96.3 AUc, and the TWI is currently 80.3. The modern high for our TWI is 81.9 which it reached in July last year.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk over the holiday period is by following our Economic Calendar here » Have a fun, safe New Year celebration.
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