Bernard Hickey delivers an economic weather report in association with the BNZ detailing the ANZ commodity price rise.

The amount of money spent by international visitors hit a record high of $6.2 billion last year, despite fallout from the global financial crisis. Tuesday Feb 23, 2010 Photo Greg Bowker

From Tony Alexander - Chief Economist, BNZ
Read this column if: you want a plain English analysis of the Economy, Financial Markets and Interest Rates.

4th of March 2010. Welcome to the BNZ Weekly Overview - Survey Time. This is the first issue of the Weekly Overview for the month therefore we are running our regular survey. If you have not already done so from the email link please click on the link below and let us know whether you believe the economy will get better or worse over the coming year.

There were 341,300 visitors to New Zealand in December, the highest ever monthly figure, says Statistics NZ. 12:00 PM Thursday Feb 4, 2010 Photo Paul Estcourt.

BNZ Confidence Survey - 8th March 2010. Confidence Barely Changed – Still Firm - Our second BNZ Confidence Survey for 2010 has found sentiment still well above average though off from the high level in December.

The Reserve Bank's latest stab at constraining the activities of finance companies – and other entities in the so-called non-bank deposit-taking, or NBDT, sector – reveals the nation's finest financial brains are rather dismissive of the perceptive powers of the average punter. David Chaplin 9:41 AM Wednesday Feb 3, 2010