Here's my summary of the key events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news of more China troubles.
But first, in the US, consumer confidence which rose in December, has risen again in January. And it seems the big snow storms in the north east won't have any impact on national economic activity.
All eyes are on the US Fed who will have some important guidance this time tomorrow morning, completely overshadowing tomorrows' RBNZ OCR review.
One Fed item that will be closely watched will be how the Chinese stumbles are affecting their return-to-normal plans. Markets see much less room for them to raise rates.
In China, there is always scepticism about their official data. And now a new investigation into the boss of their statistics agency is unlikely to inspire confidence. The Communist Party’s anticorruption commission announced overnight that it was looking into the head of the agency over what it called “serious violations.”
Chinese stocks plunged a startling -6.4% yesterday to a 13-month low. This came before the announcement of the corruption investigation but following disappointing energy demand data that heightened fears among investors already fretting over the mainland’s economic slowdown. In a report released yesterday, it was revealed that oil demand rose +4.4% in 2015 and now more than 60% is imported, a new high. You would think low oil prices would have helped the Shanghai investor's mood.
And the stock market decline came despite the People’s Bank of China pumping ¥440 bln (NZ$100 bln) of liquidity into money markets yesterday via reverse repurchase agreements, the biggest daily cash injection in three years.
But big changes are still sweeping over China. They are now reported to have 1.3 bln mobile phone users - that's nearly one for everyone - and almost 400 mln are on 4G, triple growth in a year.
In New York, the benchmark UST 10yr yield is slipping again and is now at 2.00%.
The oil price is slightly higher today and is just on US$32/barrel on both benchmarks.
The gold price is also up marginally, now at US$1,115/oz.
The Kiwi dollar starts today at 64.9 US¢, at 92.6 AU¢, and at 59.9 euro cents. The TWI-5 starts today at 70.6.
If you want to catch up with all the local changes yesterday, we have an update here.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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