Friday 11th October 2019

Today could have been so different. Early in the week the expectation was that US-China trade talks and Brexit negotiations would go nowhere. Now, both look like some sort of deal could be reached. Phil Dobbie talks to NAB’s Rodrigo Catril about the change in direction, that could see a currency pact delaying next week’s scheduled tariff increases in the US, whilst the UK and Irish Prime Ministers came out of a three hour meeting talking of a way forward that could see a deal before the end of the month. Perhaps continued poor data is helping to concentrate the minds of politicians, with UK industrial production down, US inflation lower and German exports falling markedly. And this morning’s PMI for New Zealand will show this part of the world is not exempt from the downturn.