Best of Business

New Zealand’s agriculture sector should be able to withstand the current El Niño weather pattern, although it may lead to increased farm costs, an agricultural economist says.
Earth Sciences New Zealand this month confirmed El Niño conditions have been reached the tropical Pacific and are expected to strongly influence New Zealand's weather.
The Country's Jamie Mackay explained further.
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One of New Zealand's big power companies is throwing their support behind a firm planning to build a large data centre in Southland.
Mercury has invested $53 million for a 12.7 percent minority equity stake in Datagrid NZ.
Mercury CEO Stew Hamilton says the company's looking to invest in a new growth sector - and there's potential to make more investments like this down the track.
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Australia's unemployment rate stayed at 4.4 percent in June, according to the latest Labour Force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The rise in employment was driven by a 47,000-person rise in part-time work, pushing it to more than 4.6 million people, with full-time employment also rising up by 29,300 to over 10 million people.
Australian correspondent Murray Olds says the Reserve Bank is looking for unemployment figures to go higher in order to cool the economy down.
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Recent data has unveiled a silver lining in the latest June-quarter inflation figures.
Rents rose at their slowest rate, annually, in 25 years, according to Stats NZ.
The country’s stock of rents rose by 0.5 percent between the June 2025 and 2026 quarters, continuing the trend of softening increases that began towards the end of 2024.
NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explained further.
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It's been an interesting time for the tech sector, with many big companies reporting their results.
Tech stocks recently reversed some of the recent selloff last night - with the Nasdaq up 1.9 percent.
Milford Asset Management's Andrew Curtayne explained further.
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