Some words of sense yesterday from outgoing Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens who told our squabbling, campaigning politicians that there are years of hard budget repair work ahead for the next federal government.

If their sharemarket performance are any guide, Bayer is going to fail in its massive $A85 billion bid for the American group, Monsanto, and investors in Monsanto agree.

Real, or a ploy to try and set up a higher price from trade buyers?

Talk about conflicting messages from the data – Japan has a problem that is taxing the government and the central bank.

According to the overnight futures market at the weekend, our market isn’t going anywhere today.

The US dollar will now be the major driver for commodity prices after last week’s rather blatant move by the US Federal Reserve to return a rate rise to centre stage.

American interest rates will be top of the list for markets and investors this week, or rather the future direction of rates, with a couple of key bits of data and a speech by Fed chair Janet Yellen to set the scene for what could be the second increase of this cycle from America’s central bank.

The bloom is fading from the Australian jobs market as the Reserve Bank has been suspected, before this month’s surprise rate cut.

US agrichemicals and seeds giant, Monsanto is reportedly considering a massive multi-billon dollar takeover bid from Germany’s Bayer.

Figures out yesterday confirmed that China’s housing sector is the driver of economic growth at the moment. Prices rose in a majority of the country’s 70 major cities in April on both an annual and a monthly basis. And they grew by the fastest rate for two years.

Week two of America’s retailing reporting season and the fallout is almost as confusing as the first week was. In fact apart from some isolated examples such as Home Depot, TJX Cos and Walmart, the news was gloomy.

The Australian dollar dropped by a cent, shares eased and the overnight ASX 200 futures market dipped to a tiny loss after the US Federal Reserve hardened its interest rate rise outlook.

Japan’s economy grew much more than expected in the first three months of 2016 due to stronger than forecast consumer and government spending and demand for Japanese exports.

Even though March quarter wages growth in Australia fell to yet another record low, there was actually a rise in real wages for the second quarter in a row, thanks to falling inflation.

Wall Street sold off on irrational fears the US Federal Reserve might raise interest rates at its two day meeting in June. That was after a non-voting member of the Open Markets Committee – the rate setting body at the central bank – indicated that markets had not been focusing on the June meeting for a possible rate rise.

There’s plenty of gloom and doom about Australian house prices, but yesterday Westpac pointed to the growing risk that Kiwi house prices could start to fall by 2018 as NZ’s debt-fuelled spending surge of the past few years starts to catch up with the Kiwi economy.

Warren Buffett still has the capacity to move markets.

A relatively quiet week in Australia and globally for major data releases.

Share markets face a mixed opening in Australia and Asia today after a messy end to trading on the weekend provided no firm guide.

China’s economy continues to stumble along in an unconvincing fashion with the latest data for investment, factory output and retail sales all slowing in April, surprising analysts.

According to some panicky commentators, the weak results last week from a group of big US department store chains such as Macy’s JC Penny, Nordstrom and Kohl’s reflect problem in the US economy.

For Australian investors, the second weekly sell-off in Chinese iron ore and steel futures and physical prices should worry them – but as we saw last week, the 6% slide had little impact. Coming on top of the 12% slump the week before, iron ore prices have lost their boom-like bloom.