RN Breakfast's Business Editor Sheryle Bagwell previews the week ahead in business and finance.
Central banks have once again delivered a 'sugar hit' to weakened global sharemarkets, with the Bank of Japan announcing a surprise cut in its official interest rate to below zero on Friday.
Australian shares look set to open strongly higher this morning after rallies in the US and Europe on Friday.
Another solid bout of monthly job creation in the United States has cleared the way for the country's first official rate hike in nearly ten years.
A degree of optimism returned to global share markets last week, as equity investors became more relaxed about the prospect of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates next month.
Stocks are expected to tumble around the world today, including in Australia, in the wake of Friday night's terrorist attacks in Paris.
US interest rates look set to rise next month, after a surge in job creation in October pushed the US unemployment rate down to five per cent.
The odds have shortened that the Reserve Bank will cut official interest rates to a new record low of 1.75 per cent when it meets tomorrow, Melbourne Cup Day.
The US dollar rebounded, bond prices fell and global equity markets were steady on Friday after the US posted another strong month of jobs gains.
Joe Hockey has set aside austerity to deliver a budget that spends almost every dollar it saved last year.
In a sign of the increasing concern in China about corporate debt levels, the Chinese central bank has cut interest rates for the third time in six months.
Official statistics released last Friday pointed to another big drop in the US rate of unemployment.
The meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs wrapped up in Cairns over the weekend, with finance leaders saying they remained committed to boosting global growth by close to two per cent by 2018.
Iraq, the US, Russia and Ukraine - Sheryle Bagwell explains the morning's foreign news.
The super guarantee levy will be frozen at 9.5 per cent for seven years, according to a deal struck between the Abbott Government and Clive Palmer yesterday in return for the abolition of the mining tax.