Here's our summary of key events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news US trade policy is getting messy.
But first, following on from our report yesterday that American car sales slid -2% in February, today we can report that heavy truck sales jumped again, and remarkably, in February. They were up a whopping +76% from the same month a year ago.
According to the IEA, American shale oil output is set to surge over the next five years stealing market share from OPEC producers and moving the United States, once the world's top oil importer, closer to self sufficiency, Brazil, Canada and Norway, all non-OPEC members, are also producing record output. But not everyone is convinced the US can grow output in the way assumed.
If it was possible, the US steel and aluminium tariff threat just got messier overnight. The US president said he will not exempt Canada or Mexico unless they roll over in the NAFTA renegotiations. Then the leader of the Republicans in the Congressional House of Representatives said the tariff plan is a non-starter in Congress. It's a civil war inside the US Administration.
In Italy, after their national elections resulted in a hung result, and after gains by eurosceptics and ultra-nationalists, the verdict from their stock markets is negative. The yields on Italian bonds jumped.
In China, official data out shows that their citizens made more than 130 mln trips overseas in 2017. The most popular destinations were Thailand and Japan where more than 9.7 and 7.4 mln visitors arrived respectively. The overall totals represented a +7% rise over 2016. Spending rose only +5% to US$115.3 bln. New Zealand attracted 400,000 Chinese visitors in the past year, but that was actually a drop of -5%.
In New York, the UST 10 yr yield is higher at 2.89%.
The gold price is down today at US$1,319/oz today, a fall of US$4/oz.
Oil prices are up more than US$1 today with the US benchmark now just over US$62.50/bbl and the Brent benchmark over US$65.50/bbl. The closure of two major Libyan oil fields in the past few days is behind today's spike.
The Kiwi dollar will start today unchanged at 72.3 USc. On the cross rates we are at 93.2 AUc and 58.6 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 at 73.4 and at the bottom of its 2018 range.
Bitcoin is now at US$11,490, up +3.2% from this time on yesterday.
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The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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