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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; no rate changes, locals holiday here less in May, dense modular social housing coming, Kotahi score a big one, swaps rise & steepen

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; no rate changes, locals holiday here less in May, dense modular social housing coming, Kotahi score a big one, swaps rise & steepen

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes so far today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes here today either.

LONG RUN ENDS
The local tourism sector continues to attract international visitors strongly, but Kiwis seem to have had their fill. For May 2016 compared with May last year, domestic guest nights were down -6.4, with motels and hotels accounting for most of the fall. In contrast, international guest nights were up +9.7%, with gains for stays at both hotels and motels. Overall, total national guest nights for May 2016 were down -0.4% on May 2015, and that is the first year-on-year decline since Match 2014. Still, at 34.8%, that is the highest industry occupancy rate for a May on record. (Ten years ago, the composite May occupancy rate was 28.8%.)

MODULAR & DENSE SOCIAL HOUSING
The Government is moving ahead with plans to build modular social housing as a part of its comprehensive plan to increase the housing supply and house more vulnerable New Zealanders. Most of the homes will be one or two bedrooms and, while the supplier has not yet been chosen, the properties will be "modern and comfortable", it assures. If density rules permit, the sites could support between 100 and 140 houses in total.

BIG IS BETTER ?
The Fonterra/SilverFernFarms logistics company Kotahi has enticed global shipping line Maersk to use Tauranga as a stop for some of the world's largest container ships. The 9500 TEU vessels will call at Tauranga as part of their Triple Star service, starting fast and direct services to Asian markets. The Port of Tauranga is spending $350 mln to be ready. The payoff will lower unit costs, and lower unit carbon footprints, it is claimed, while speeding up delivery times for chilled product. August is the scheduled start date.

DAIRY FARMER? SKIP THIS ONE
Trading on the NZX futures market for WMP recorded some lower pricing today.

TOKYO FRENZY
Last night, the S&P500 pushed on higher to new records, with a +0.3% gain on the day. This has been mirrored on the NZX here today. Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong are doing slightly better, Shanghai is up, but only just. However the spectacular stuff is happening in Tokyo where equities are up another very impressive +2.7% in mid-day trading. That is on top of the +4% we saw yesterday. Expectation of more huge stimulus from the Bank of Japan (following their weekend elections) seems to be the driver.

CAN YOU HELP?
Australia today release some detailed stats that revealed that they spent AU$64 bln (NZ$67 bln) for energy to power their economy in 2016. Given they have a AU$1.65 tln economy, the energy intensity of just 3.8% doesn't seem that large, especially given their geographic spread and mining focus. What are the equivalent New Zealand data? Do you know? (A quick check of MBIE resources didn't turn this up.)

SWAP RATES RISE TODAY
Swap rates rose and steepened today quite strongly. One and two year terms were up +1 bp, three years by +2 bps, four and five years by +3 bps, seven years by +4 bps and ten years by +5 bps. These shifts were motivated by benchmark bond yields on Wall Street earlier in the day. NZ swap rates are here. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged today at 2.42%.

NZ DOLLAR IN A RANGE
The NZD continued its upward bias today. The NZD is at 72.7 USc, at 95.7 AUc, and 65.5 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now just over 76.2. Check our real-time charts here.

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Source: CoinDesk

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2 Comments

not sure on that, they need more Teu's to make it viable, so unless they can capture so more cargo from auckland it may change back, its the old build and they will come theory

"The payoff will lower unit costs, and lower unit carbon footprints, it is claimed"

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How are Airbnb stats being calculated / measured in the guest nights stats.

Any thoughts - I believe they now form a significant part of the accommodation market and may well be under-reported or not at all.

Interested in comments.

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