Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today, but this story may interest you.
TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
ANZ cut its nine month term deposit rate by -20 bps, trimming its 3.50% rate to 3.30%. NZCU South also cut two rates, for one and three months.
WHERE THE JOBS ARE
In quite a marked contrast to world events, it has been very positive for New Zealand data today. First up the job ads data shows a healthy and improving labour market. Job ads lifted a further 1.1% in December (seasonally adjusted), the fourth consecutive monthly rise of over 1% m/m. This is the first time this has occurred since early 2011. Total job advertising is up 2.8% versus a year ago (3-month average). The Hawkes Bay got special mention as "going gangbusters" with "Auckland a distant second". Christchurch as singled out as the laggard in this survey.
DEFYING OFFSHORE PRESSURE
New Zealand's manufacturing sector recorded its highest month of expansion for 2015 in December, according to the latest BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI). The seasonally adjusted PMI for December was 56.7. This was 1.8 points higher than November, and the highest level of expansion since October 2014. The sector has now been in continued expansion since October 2012.
CONFIDENCE REMAINS HIGH
Kiwi consumers are feeling confident. Today's consumer confidence index is marginally higher at 121.4. ANZ said "such stability is notable considering the negative economic nuances from offshore to start the year. To see stability against this backdrop is a telltale sign the New Zealand economy has considerable localised pep. Prospects for the economy remain solid, amidst international turbulence." (Fyi, we are expecting the first political poll results out tomorrow evening, done by the same polling company ANZ use for their consumer sentiment survey. It would be a major surprise if there was a different tone to that result.)
LESS IS MORE
The December data for the number of people receiving a benefit is continuing to decline year on year with a -2.5% drop in the number of people receiving a main benefit between December 2014 and December 2015. The Government has announced an aspirational target to reduce the total number of people receiving main benefits by -25% from 295,000 people in June 2014 to 220,000 in June 2018, which will reduce the long-term cost of benefit dependence by $13 bln.
NEW CREDIT RATING AGENCY APPROVED
The Reserve Bank says it has approved Corporate Scorecard Pty Limited, an Australian firm, to provide credit ratings for New Zealand non-bank deposit takers such as finance companies, building societies and credit unions.
CIRCUS TIME
The Government is planning to host the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Auckland on Thursday, 4 February, at SkyCity in fact. Just enough time for rent-a-crowds to be organised.
THE BIG PICTURE
All this good NZ news is happening as the Shanghai stock exchange is giving up another -1% today in early trading, another in a long list of daily declines. The ASX is up +1% however, and the NZX is down a fraction.
WHOLESALE RATES BOUNCE
Following yesterday's very sharp falls, today we are seeing a small correction higher. Rates for 1-5 years are +3 and +4 bps higher, less so for the 7 and 10 year terms. Consequently the curve is flattening. The 90 day bank bill rate is lower, now at 2.72%.
NZ DOLLAR FOLLOWS
The New Zealand dollar has also risen today, and quite a lot from the lows we started this morning at. It is now up to 64.5 USc, at 93.1 AUc, and at 59.3 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now back up to 70.2. Check our real-time charts here.
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25 Comments
ANZ cut its nine month term deposit rate by -20 bps, trimming its 3.50% rate to 3.30%.
Do ANZ executives think Kiwis are stupid?
No, it's all about being able to interpret data and doing your own homework. Did I ever say the climate didn't change - it always warms up between ice ages. How is that $110 oil price coming along these days?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20RSS%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince197…
http://climate4you.com/images/NHemisphereSnowCoverSince1972.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIc…
Plenty of room for growth out there. "Half the World’s Population Lives in Just 1% of the Land.
...Particularly in Africa, where nearly all of the population growth is expected to occur, there is an abundance of open space for more people to live.
Nearly all of the world’s population growth by 2100 will occur in Africa. By that time, the populations of Asia, Europe, and the Americas will be flat or shrinking."
Yes, water, or the lack thereof.
--edit-- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-ross/forget-star-wars-get-ready-for-…
Then there is food, eg fish stocks are 1/2 what they were in the 1970s, so not likely to be any left by 2050. Peak oil, we need a huge amount of fossil fuel to grow food and its gone by 2050. See a trend yet? By 2050 we are also likely to be seeing 25% loss of food production by then.
"U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, aquaculture will grow by 50 percent over the next 15 years, while fisheries will probably only grow by a couple billion tons. That means, by 2030, we will farm as many fish as we catch — to the tune of 90 million tons."
https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/screen-shot-2015-07-30-at-4-2…
Plenty of room? About 30 % of Earth’s surface is land, this means that the total area of land is 0.3 * 515 ≈ 155 million square km, about half of which is habitable for humans. With roughly 7 billion people alive today, there is 0.011 square km habitable land available per person. This corresponds to a square with 100 m length and width.
Or 4ha each for the half that don't live in the 1%. And of course there is the 5ha of ocean each - and that just scratching the surface.
"...and a little ocean can go a long way.
“In the Norwegian salmon industry, which is probably the first or second producer of Atlantic salmon, if you lined the cages up side by side, you would occupy the main runway on the Stockholm airport,” Young says. That’s not a lot of space — about 60 acres, if you trust my math — to grow a lot of food — about a million tons of salmon."
http://grist.org/food/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-fish-f…
"The problem with aquaculture" says Alan Shaw, Calysta's president and CEO, "is you have to feed fish other fish before we can eat them. That's not sustainable … we're basically tapping this planet dry."
Calysta's fish food is more than 70 per cent protein. And the bonus: the bacteria dine on methane that can be captured from garbage dumps or fracking operations.
"There's a lot of waste methane," Shaw says."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/methane-guzzling-bacteria-1.3359601
Don't you "honey me", we hear you cry
http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/australian-honey-how-much-is-it-safe-to…
New research has found Australian honey is contaminated with natural poison, but what does the research mean for those with a sweet tooth?
Is some Australian honey unacceptably high in toxins?
Yes... if the recent research is accurate and if you are going by European food standards.
..... you are what you eat....
Then there is that dudd / rejected water from up north..
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