Here's my summary of the key events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news that the Jian Yang scandal may be just a small local part of a wider Chinese strategy.
But first on Wall Street, the Dow is at another record high, but broader market indexes are not making the same moves. American market eyes are on the imminent release of their tax reform proposals.
China is signaling that it will be extending its anti- money laundering regulation to "real estate agencies and precious metal and jewelry sales companies".
And the country's regulators are moving to ensure there is no embarrassing financial event during their upcoming Party Congress in October. They have banned finance and brokerage CEOs from taking holidays during the period and ordered them to ensure 'stable prices' during the period. This is market control at its most shameless.
And China is moving to build a 'social credit score', a system it hopes to be in place by 2020. Basically it will use big data to rate each citizen's level of 'trust'. It could be positively Orwellian. And that big data will largely come from a requirement companies had over their 'big data', and that will include data from foreign companies operating in China. Perhaps none of this is 'new', but the extending of the data transfer to foreign companies for the right for them to operate in the country is only now being realised. Why should we care? Well some think New Zealand may be a testing ground for exploiting a wider, international effort.
In Australia, LMI insurer Genworth has been downgraded by ratings agency Moody's by one notch on "high and rising level of tail risks embedded in the Australian housing market and reduced demand for domestic lenders' mortgage insurance products".
In the US, a new dairy-free milk product based on yellow peas is making a splash, one of the first plant-based milk alternatives that can compete directly with mainstream milk. It has cost advantages over dairy milk too. Silicon Valley venture capital money is behind the drive.
In New York, the UST 10yr yield is still rising and is now at 2.19%.
The price of crude oil has also risen by more than US$1 and is now just over US$49 a barrel, while the Brent benchmark is just over US$55. There is a tightening of supply and a small rise in demand, both driven by recent US weather events.
The price of gold is virtually unchanged on the day at US$1,328/oz.
And the Kiwi dollar has fallen ½c on a stronger greenback, now just on 72.4 US. On the cross rates we are still at 90.6 AU¢ however, and 60.9 euro cents. And the TWI-5 index is now at 74.6.
If you want to catch up with all the changes on 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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