Here's my summary of the key events overnight that affect New Zealand with news the world's services are expanding nicely.
Firstly however, today's dairy auction did not bring the expected rise in prices signaled by the derivatives market. True, they did not fall overall either, coming in up just +0.4% in USD terms, but down -0.3% in NZD terms. A New Zealand weather-induced bounce in WMP prices didn't occur as expected; WMP prices are up just +1.7%. That will disappoint industry observers because it seems to cook in the last four consecutive falls leaving prices -10% lower than where they were in September. There were rises for some other components, but butter fell -11% and cheese fell -4% at this auction, (a lot, but these two products make up less than 10% of auction volumes). Farm gate milk pricing is under pressure now.
In the US, the latest service sector PMI has come in strongly. It is lower than for October, but still indicating a strong expansion. A second index shows the same thing. This is the latest evidence their economy is experiencing another quarter of solid growth.
Services in China improved marginally, while those in the Eurozone expanded strongly. In Japan, their services sector could not match their factory sector, showing a subdued level of growth.
In other data out overnight, the US trade deficit for both goods and services came in slightly worse than expected in October, pushed out by a fast pace of imports especially from China and even faster from the EU.
In China, a unit of HNA has scrapped a local share sale worth NZ$1.1 bln because it could not get regulatory approval.
In Australia, the RBA sounds more confident falling unemployment should ultimately force companies into paying higher wages - a key trigger for rate hikes.
And we should also note that Amazon launched yesterday in Australia with a local website, local distribution, and local offers.
In New York, the UST 10yr yield is now at 2.37% as yields flatten worldwide.
The price of crude oil is a little higher, now just under US$58 / barrel, while the Brent benchmark is just over US$63.
The price of gold is down -US$11 to US$1,263 oz which is as low as it got in August.
The Kiwi dollar is just a little firmer from this time yesterday. We are now at 68.8 US¢. And on the cross rates we are at 90.4 AU¢, and against the euro at 58.2 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 at 71.7. And bitcoin is sharply higher again today, now at US$11,745 having reached a new all-time record high of US$11,860 a few hours ago.
If you want to catch up with all the 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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