The World Remains A Challenging Place - Fresh economic data releases have been thin on the ground in New Zealand this week, but offshore it has been a different story., but offshore it has been a different story. In Europe we have seen a lift in German business confidence to a  three year high coming hard on the heels of an earlier report showing 2.2% growth in the German economy during the June quarter.

It’s a longer than usual gap between Monetary Policy Statements. With few significant data releases before the September  review, the market took what it could from the RBNZ Governor’s speech last week.

The New Zealand dollar continued to gain some of the ground lost to the greenback last week as investors found more of their appetite for risk.  By 8am today the kiwi was buying US71.24c, up from US71.02c at 5pm yesterday.

Have we learnt anything this week which would warrant one having more doubt about the strength of upturn in the NZ  economy? At the margin yes as a result of weak jobs and foreign trade data in the United States and downbeat  comments from the Federal Reserve.

The main piece of news telling us something relevant about the state of and prospects for the NZ economy this week appeared this morning in the form of the quarterly Household Labour Force Survey.

The New Zealand dollar held onto gains Tuesday afternoon after the Reserve Bank of Australia left interest rates on hold, as expected, across the Tasman.