India & the US strike a tariff deal

Economy Watch · Feb 2, 2026 · 4m

Kia ora,

Welcome to Tuesday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.

I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.

Today we lead with news commodity prices are still falling after last week's crazy surge. The retreats are widespread and substantial. Oddly, it isn't having much effect on commodity-based currencies however.

But first today, the January factory PMIs for the US were positive, based on good new order growth. The closely-watched local ISM version expanded for the first time in 12 months, preceded…