Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.
DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes today here either.
SOCIAL-SIDE BOOSTS
Thursday's election year Budget won't be election year lolly scramble, the Finance Minister says. He is signaling prospects for a 'families package' and that is tending to add to rumours the bottom two income tax brackets will be raised and boosts will come for the tax credits in the WorkingForFamilies and Accommodation Supplement programs.
'WE WANT MORE'
The Aussie banks have been estimating the impact of the proposed special tax on them by Canberra. Westpac said it will hit them for AU$280 mln, CBA says AU$220 mln, and now ANZ's estimate is AU$240 mln. We have yet to year from NAB or Macquarie. But it is becoming clear that these liabilities will not ad up to anything like the AU$6.2 bln the Australian Treasury was counting on. It could be as much as AU$2 bln short, even more. So the whispers are starting that the 6 bps Budget indication might end up somewhat higher in the actual enabling legislation.
FINALLY, THERE MIGHT BE SOME ACTION
The Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister commits to a 'significant package of insurance contract law reform in 2018'. She admits our current archaic disclosure rules are divisive. Expect the insurance industry to muscle-up to keep their advantages.
INTERNAL MILESTONES
Our credit ratings explainer page has now just pushed on up through 100,000 reads. Our IRD rural tax values page has just hit 75,000.
TMNZ MONETISES TAX POOLING
Tax pooling arranger Tax Management New Zealand is to issue NZ$150 mln of asset-backed commercial paper and Fitch Ratings has assigned an 'F1+' rating to Tributum Trust through which TMZ is doing the issue. Tax pooling allows taxpayers to pool their provisional tax payments together in an account administered by a tax pooling intermediary. A liquidity facility provided by the BNZ, which has a Short-Term Rating of 'F1+', will provide full credit and liquidity protection for the program. The rating assigned to the notes is sensitive to changes in the Short-Term Rating of BNZ. The F1+ is a short term rating code akin to the long term code of AAA under Fitch's definitions (see page 30).
EYES ON FONTERRA
Tomorrow morning Fonterra will declare its initial forecast for the 2017/2018 dairy season payout. The 2016/2017 payout level is still at NZ$6/kgMS and yet the expectation is that the next year will start out somewhere in the NZ$6.75/kgMS region. However, today's derivatives market for WMP is quite soft with price indications at about a worrying -3.5% lower than the level at the last auction.
WHOLESALE RATES SLIP
Most wholesale rates are down by -2 bps today, reversing all of yesterday's gains. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.97%.
NZ DOLLAR FIRMS
The NZD is now back over 70 USc for the first time in ten days at 70.1 USc. On the crosses we are also a little stronger at 93.6 AUc, and at 62.4 euro cents. The TWI-5 is at 74.2. And bitcoin touched US$2,288 at 6 am this morning. But in the next 4 hours it fell -9.9%, and since then has recovered by +5.6%. This is a frenetic, crazy pricing environment, consumed by reckless speculation. All normal for bitcoin, then.
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Investors are lapping up mortgage bonds in Australia even as regulators and credit assessors step up their warnings about risks from the nation’s housing market.
New residential mortgage-backed securities issuance has more than doubled so far this year to A$10.5 billion ($7.8 billion) from A$5.1 billion a year earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show. More than half of the issuance has been fueled by non-bank lenders. Those firms have fewer funding options compared with major Australian banks, which have been favoring unsecuritized debt at a time when costs are close to historical lows.
The surging sales come as Australians’ private debt skyrockets to an average 189 percent of annual household income, making citizens Down Under some of the world’s most indebted after binging on more than A$1 trillion of mortgages amid a housing boom. Soaring home prices in Sydney and Melbourne have stoked concern from politicians to central bankers, leading Treasurer Scott Morrison to extend regulators’ powers to apply controls to the non-bank lending sector.
“There’s a risk of a downturn in house prices. In our view, the market is extremely stretched,” said Matthew Peter, chief economist of Queensland-based asset manager QIC Ltd. As demand for loans rise, riskier borrowers will increasingly turn to non-bank lenders, leaving RMBS investors exposed to “a burgeoning risk to the financial system that’s coming potentially through this shadow banking source,” he said. Read more
Dead canary in a coalmine alert?
It's a great idea for the finance companies to unload MBS filled with their worst loans. If they do it right they'll save themselves and the suckers buying the bonds will wear the loss. Australia should be looking at appropriate regulations rather than letting finance companies go hog wild doing anything they please without having to answer to anyone.
Apple's Market Value Near Parity to 5 Biggest China Banks
Hmmmmm.....
The Tokyo Imperial Palace (皇居? Kōkyo, literally "Imperial Residence") is the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is a large park-like area located in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo and contains buildings including the main palace (宮殿? Kyūden), the private residences of the Imperial Family, an archive, museums and administrative offices.
It is built on the site of the old Edo Castle. The total area including the gardens is 3.41 square kilometres (1.32 sq mi). During the height of the 1980s Japanese property bubble, the palace grounds were valued by some to be more than the value of all of the real estate in the state of California. Read more
We all know what happened thereafter.
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