Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Today it was the turn of HSBC to announce their floating rate increase. They also added 10 bps to their 6 month fixed rate.
TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
On the saving side, the SBS Bank added +25 bps to their key call account. ASB Securities and CraigsIP did the same.
CROWD FUNDING LICENSED
The first two equity crowd funding licences were issued today by the FMA to PledgeMe and Snowball Effect. This follows the granting of a first peer-to-peer platform licence earlier in the month to Harmoney.
TWO THIRDS OF MORTGAGES ARE ON FIXED TERMS
The push to fix mortgages continued in June according to data from the RBNZ out today. With 68.5% of all mortgages (by value) now fixed, that's back to March 2010 levels, and up from 66.9% at the end of May. The previous 'peak fixed' was 87% at the end of 2007.
SOVEREIGN DEFAULT
Argentina and the so-called "hold-out" investors failed to reach an agreement at last-ditch talks today in New York which has resulted in the country's 8th default. Real trouble now awaits Argentineans. The odd bit is, Argentina has the funds, and currently has reserves of more than US$30 bln. However, if it does pay, it may face make-up claims for about half of that from earlier haircut settlements. Defaulting - even for sovereign countries - is not a good idea.
NATIONAL SUPPORT SLIPS IN LATEST POLL
Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows a large fall in support for National (46%, down 5% - the lowest since May) now with a significantly reduced lead over a potential Labour/Greens alliance (42%, up 3.5%) just two months before the New Zealand Election on September 20.
MOVE TO CHCH FOR $3K
157 people (beneficiaries) have so far taken the Government’s $3,000 to help them move to Christchurch, a third of them young people. Two thirds of them are now working in the construction industries.
OIL CHEAPER
The oil price has fallen below US$100/barrel for the American WTI benchmark. The Brent benchmark is sinking too. Our petrol price may not look like it is reflecting these falls but that is because we have imposed another 3c tax on ourselves recently to keep the pump price up.
WHOLESALE RATES
Swap rates ended the month in a strongly positive vein following bond yield rises on Wall Street earlier in the day. One year swaps rose +2 bps, five years rose +5 bps and ten years rose +6 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate was up another +1 bp at 3.71%.
OUR CURRENCY
The NZ dollar has run through pretty much unchanged again today following virtually no movement yesterday either. The NZD is still at 85.0 USc, is at 91.2 AUc and the TWI is at 79.5. If the RBNZ is in this market trying to push the NZD down, no-one is noticing the effort.
You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.
2 Comments
Yip ,Wheeler has a looming problem ........... in our office there was a discussion at lunchtime about fixing mortgages, and of our 12 staff , 8 have mortgages.
One is on a long term fix and a further 3 have fixed in the past 6 weeks alone .
Another 2 are considering it
This seems to be in response to their banks inviting them to do so in letters to them .
Either way 50% of the staff are now fixed , whereas it was around 12% at the begining of the year.
If the 2 fence sitters sign up , them 75% of our staff will have fixed mortgages , way over the current national average of 66% .
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