Here's my summary of the key events over the weekend that affect New Zealand, with news that UDC may be getting Chinese owners.
But first, sales and traffic at physical American retail stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday were down -5% on last year. Looking for a boost, many such stores offered heavy discounts but more customers shopped online, and this sector reported gains of +18%. Between them both, sales are expected to be up +3.6%.
And the Americans reported that their trade deficit rose in October, and the result was quite a bit worse than expected. Exports fell -2.8% while imports rose +1.1%. Of course, none of that is a problem for their trading partners.
In fact, China is claiming its factories and other producers are improving their profitability. Data released over the weekend shows industrial profits rose +8.6% year on year in October. Part of this improvement is because price hikes are now sticking. And they also report rail freight volumes up 11.2% in the same period.
And China's central bank has tightened monetary conditions in the past week or so, effectively raising interest rates by +0.25% by stealth.
In Australia, the AFR is reporting that ANZ is in final negotiations to sell UDC to China's HNA Group.
China may be in some sort of ascendancy now, but that can't last. Their demographics are always going to be an issue for them. But the sheer scale of their problem may in fact be much more daunting.
In New York, the UST 10yr yield is unchanged today, at 2.36%.
The US benchmark oil price is noticeably lower and now just on US$46 a barrel, while the Brent benchmark is now just on US$47 a barrel. And it being reported by Platts that the US is now a net exporter of natural gas.
The gold price was down sharply in Asian trading over the weekend, but has since recovered some of that fall and is now at US$1,178/oz, a -US$6 net fall.
The New Zealand dollar will start the week a little higher at 70.4 US¢. On the cross rates it is also level pegging at 94.6 AU¢, and against the euro at 66.5 euro cents. The NZ TWI-5 index is still at 76.3.
If you want to catch up with all the local changes on Friday, 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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