The New Zealand dollar was little changed in local trading after stronger than expected US employment figures stoked demand for the greenback on a growing expectation the Federal Reserve will have to hike interest rates. The kiwi traded at 77.67 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 77.65 cents at 8am, and 77.62 cents at the close of trading in New York …

The latest major power cut in Auckland is the fifth to hit the region since 1998. The biggest was the six-week Mercury power outage in 1998 that involved the failure of four power cables due to overheating. It had an estimated long-term economic impact equivalent to 0.1 to 0.3 per cent of New Zealand’s gross domestic product and over half of …

New Zealand business confidence continued to slide in the September quarter, as the positive outlook seen earlier in the year wasn’t backed up by similarly strong actual economic activity, according to the latest Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. A net 20 percent of businesses remained optimistic in the September quarter, down from 32 percent …