The National Australia Bank has lifted its forecasts for the Australian economy a day after its monthly business conditions survey showed another decade high in activity (but a small dip in confidence, although that remains at very high levels).

Gee they are an ungrateful lot in Canada – after saving Home Capital Group, the country’s biggest subprime lender, shareholders have rejected Warren Buffett’s attempt to lift his stake in the still wobbly mortgage group.

Another solid report on business conditions and the economy from the National Australia Bank’s monthly survey, but business confidence eased a touch.

Now for the deck chair shuffling in the UK daily newspapers. Trinity Mirror is looking to buy Express Newspapers owners, Northern and Shell from Richard Desmond for a reported £100 million ($A163 million) Given that the News York Daily News is being sold by Mort Zuckerman for $US1, Desmond’s price is astonishing, even if he has slashed costs and held down journalists pay to the point where Express papers made a small reported profit in 2015.

It was a modest reaction from investors to the launch of the much hyped iPhone 8 series, as well as a new, expensive flagship model as the company moved to three versions of the phone.

Early estimates of the cost of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have been slashed after the storm proved to be less damaging than forecast.

The new iPhone 8 will be the only business story of interest globally this week, but there’s also the impact of the two hurricanes approaching the US, not to mention some important economic data for the US and Australian economies this week.

The August trade and inflation data from China was mostly solid – a lot of silly talk about a smaller than expected rise in exports, while imports were higher overall and inflation was tame.

The Australian share market will start flat and wondering where to go later today with fears about the impact of Hurricane Irma foremost, along with the now usual tensions about North Korea and the sell off in metals late last week.

The Aussie dollar ended last week at its highest close for nearly two and a half years – after touching 81.20, the highest since the start of 2015 on Friday night.

The recent rally in metal prices (except gold and silver) came to a sudden halt on Friday as the prices of iron ore, copper, lead nickel and zinc slid.

Amazon completed its $US14 billion takeover of Whole Foods last month and immediately cut prices, put in new products from its own line up, and American analysts, media and many in the retail sector wet themselves.

The gold mining companies on the ASX were hit hard yesterday by the West Australian government’s budget with a double tax hit.

What you didn’t learn from the wins this week by The Australian and The Weekend Australian in the Newspaper of The Year award handed out in Sydney. The sponsor, the Norwegian paper company, Norske Skog is teetering on the brink of collapse after the collapse of a shareholders meeting that was to have been held last month.

A combination of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, plus fears about North Korea, the continuing worries about the money laundering charges against the Commonwealth Bank and a downgrade by a leading bank kicked the chocks from under listed financial stocks yesterday.

The next data point for the Reserve Bank and economists (and those who have lived through the situation previously) to worry about was confirmed in yesterday’s June quarter GDP figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

No movement on interest rates for some time was the message from yesterday’s Reserve Bank board meeting and a speech made in Brisbane after the meeting by Governor Phil Lowe.

Follow the money – BHP is spending $US2.5 billion to expand the life of its Spence mine in Chile, as well as another $US600 million on revitalising Olympic Dam in South Australia. OZ Minerals will spend well over $US1 billion expanding its Prominent Hill mine and developing a new mine at Carrapateena in South Australia.

Move on, nothing to see here. Interest rates are not going anywhere soon.

Don’t expect anything but a ‘sitting’ pat statement from the Reserve Bank in its September statement on monetary policy.

The mining and oil industries are back looking for new resources or drilling out existing deposits as global prices for commodities such as copper, nickel, lead, zinc, iron ore and gold continue to firm. Only oil and gas prices have not risen in the past month.

It’s a very busy week ahead for Australia – there’s the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy meeting tomorrow, the June quarter GDP figures the day after, data on retail sales, and trade for July as well as car sales for August.

Even though US markets will be closed tonight for the Labor Day holiday (meaning two days without much of a guide for markets in Asia, other than Europe), that shouldn’t have much of an impact on the gathering optimism about the health of the Australian and global economies.

Gold prices jumped more than 2% last week as global political fears (Russia, the US, North Korea) and the unknown impact of Hurricane Harvey combined to unsettle investor sentiment.

Oil prices seem to be coping with the continuing impact of Hurricane Harvey on the US oil, gas and associated industries.

US oil and gas stocks were the best performers on Wall Street in 2016 with a jump of 24%. This year they are the worst with the sector down more than 16% as oil prices wander lower – helped in the last few days by the impact of Hurricane Harvey which has shut so much oil and and gas refineries and other plant in and around Houston that US refining capacity is at a seven year low.