Here's my summary of the key events from overnight, with news National is continuing to hold a comfortable lead over the Opposition, despite its support falling 7% in August.
The latest Roy Morgan poll shows support for National has dropped to 46%, having spiked in July following the announcement of a $1 billion housing infrastructure policy. It's still well ahead of a potential Labour/Greens alliance, which has 40% support.
Labour has yet again failed to get any traction, with its support levels stagnant at 25.5%. Support for the Green Party is up 3% to 14.5%, while potential king-maker, NZ First is up 2.5% to 9.5%. Despite people's discontent around issues like housing affordability and low wage growth, 58% of voters say New Zealand is heading in the right direction.
There are signs Australia's residential construction boom has peaked. While 2016 will be a record year for new home construction, the Housing Industry Association expects "sharper falls" in 2017 and 2018. Its call comes further to its new home sales slumping nearly 10% in July, off the back of a jump in June.
Over to the US, consumer spending increased as expected, for the fourth month in a row, in July. The 0.3% increase was boosted by strong demand for cars. Personal income growth also rose 0.4%, pointing to a pickup in economic growth.
Yet with inflation remaining low, there are question marks over whether this gives the Federal Reserve enough ammunition to hike interest rates next month.
In other news, China's top 500 enterprises reported their first annual decline in combined revenues in 15 years, last year. While their revenues still totalled nearly US$9 trillion, they slid 0.07%.
The China Daily says the decline largely represented the overcapacity-plagued coal, steel, oil and chemicals industries. The service sector contributed 41% of the revenues, outperforming the manufacturing sector, at 39%, for the first time.
In New York, the UST 10yr yield has eased back overnight to 1.59%.
The oil price is down fractionally. The US benchmark price is at US$47 a barrel, while the Brent benchmark is at US$49 a barrel.
The gold price is stable at US$1,323/oz.
The New Zealand dollar is recouping some of the losses it suffered further to the Fed's Chair on Saturday (NZ time) saying the case for a rate hike had strengthened. It’s at 72.6 US¢, 95.8 AU¢ and 64.9 euro cents. The TWI index is up to 75.9.
If you want to catch up with all the local changes from 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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