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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; Westpac trumps BNZ; NZ economy growing strongly; lifestyle bloc sales sag; wholesale rates sharply lower; NZD back above 75 USc

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; Westpac trumps BNZ; NZ economy growing strongly; lifestyle bloc sales sag; wholesale rates sharply lower; NZD back above 75 USc
For Thursday, March 19, 2015. <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/">Image sourced from Shutterstock.com</a>

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There were no changes announced today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Similarly, there are no TD changes to report.

CREDIT CARD SHAKEUP
The local credit card world was shaken up today with Air NZ dumping BNZ and switching to Westpac with its Airpoints program features. The switchover happens on May 1. Westpac will launch four new cards and a mortgage product that can earn Airpoints Dollars. Tens of thousands of customers would need to switch banks to retain the Airpoints benefit with credit card spending. It's a big win for Westpac and a potentially big loss for BNZ. But BNZ will no doubt respond. Could get 'interesting'.

SAME VOLUME, HIGHER PRICES
Farm sales are chugging along at a healthy but level rate. There were 144 farms sold in February, about the same number as a year ago. Keeping it like that was a doubling of the horticulture units sold because fewer livestock finishing units sold this year. 33 of the sales were dairy units, just 3 fewer than for the same month a year ago. The prices per hectare however did jump over the same period with most types up strongly; dairy for example was up +30% in $/ha year-on-year.

LOSING LUSTRE?
Lifestyle block sales in February were unremarkable, except to note that over the past twelve months they are running -3% lower. That is especially noticeable in Canterbury were they are down -15%. In the Wellington region they are down -14%.

FASTER GROWTH
Above expectations, Q4 GDP shows the NZ economy is growing at its fastest pace since 2007 thanks to three key sectors, retailing, tourism and real estate services. As Westpac said, "With no unusual details for the quarter, we feel we can take today’s result at face value: the economy has continued to outstrip its long-run potential growth pace."

ANOTHER TRADE AGREEMENT
New Zealand and Viet Nam have agreed an ambitious target of doubling two-way goods and service trade to around $2.2 billion by 2020. Also signed was a cooperation arrangement on food safety and an air services agreement which will provide greater choices for New Zealanders flying to Viet Nam.

WHOLESALE RATES SHARPLY LOWER
The three to ten year wholesale swap rates were sharply lower today, with the 10-year rate down -10 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate was -1 bps lower at 3.62%.

NZ DOLLAR CLIMBS
Check our real-time charts here.  The NZD climbed back above 75c against the USD during the day, principally due to a combination of a dovish FOMC statement early this morning and the relatively strong GDP number. It is now at 75.0 USc, at 96.6 AUc, and the TWI is at 79.6

You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.

Daily exchange rates

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3 Comments

US natural gas production continues to boom. In some parts of the Marcellus the break even is 38 cents.

 

"Relentless U.S. production gains that caught many natural gas traders by surprise have triggered a 30 percent plunge in prices since November.

 

Bank of America Corp. says the selloff isn’t over and is telling clients to brace for the possibility of sub-$2 prices for the first time in three years. Gas output will climb to an all-time high of 78.39 billion cubic feet a day this year, an increase of 50 percent over 2005, led by shale reservoirs in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas, government data show.

 

The number of gas rigs has tumbled to the lowest level since 1993, yet supply has risen steadily because of improved techniques for extracting the fuel."

 

So much for the predicted 2005 geological peak.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-18/surprising-natural-ga…

 

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The Westpac Airpoints scoop is enormous. BNZ will shed a lot of business, and suddenly Westpac's credit card offering now looks competitive

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No choice but to switch, when you have built up a few thousand dollars of air points based on spending on a card you can't let them expire.

a small step that may lead to Bnz losing more than just the credit card business. 

 

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