Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Westpac raised fixed rates, some of which are now market-highs. More here. HSBC also raised rates.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Rabobank raised all its rates again, another bump up after only doing it last on Monday. Westpac also rated its rate.
KIWISAVER RETURNS HO-HUM IN SEPTEMBER QUARTER
Morningstar today released its KiwiSaver Survey to 30 September 2021. KiwiSaver funds generally reflected the subdued underlying market conditions experienced over the September quarter with the bulk of multisector funds experiencing a return of less than 1%. Funds with larger exposures to domestic growth assets and lower exposures to domestic fixed interest generally outperformed over the three-month period. The average multisector category returns ranged from 0.2% for the Conservative category to 0.9% for the Growth category.
NEW SBS BANK CEO
SBS Bank said today that Southlander Mark McLean will take over from Shaun Drylie as chief executive, effective December 2021. McLean is an internal appointment.
BRIMMING
Seven of ten reservoirs in the Auckland water storage system are now 100% full, and the others almost to the overall is now over 97% full, and well above the 92% average for this time of year. New Zealand's hydro lakes are also fuller than average for this time of year with recent inflows about normal.
COMMODITIES VOLATILE
The price of aluminium is now falling fast. It has been rising all year, but from mid-August it took off. But after hitting a high in mid-October, it has fallen as fast as the August/September run up. Also, magnesium is also past its ready heady peak. And iron ore just keeps on falling. But just as dairy prices are benefiting from the global re-opening of the foodservice industry, so is palm oil.
JAPANESE SURPRISE
In something of a surprise, Japanese household spending jumped +5% in September from August. That is a large move for them. It has reined-in the year-on-year decline quite a bit. A rise was expected in September from August, but the one delivered was about twice that expectation.
LOCAL PANDEMIC UPDATE
In Australia Delta cases in Victoria have jumped again to 1343 cases reported there today. There are now 18,952 active cases in the state and there were another 10 deaths yesterday. In NSW there were another 249 new community cases reported today with 3,065 active locally acquired cases, and they had another 3 deaths yesterday. Queensland is reporting another three new cases. The ACT has 6 new cases. Overall in Australia, more than 79% of eligible Aussies are fully vaccinated, plus 10% have now had one shot so far. In contrast, there were two new cases in New Zealand at the border, and 163 new community cases. Now 88.8% of Kiwis nationally aged 12+ have had at least one vaccination, while the Australian rate is now at 89.1% of all aged 16+.
GOLD UP
In early Asian trading, gold is at US$1795/oz and up +US$20 from this time yesterday.
EQUITIES MIXED
The S&P500 powered on up to another new record high again today, up +0.4% in Thursday trade. Tokyo however is down -0.4% in late morning trade but that will still leave it with a strong +2.9% rise for the week. Hong Kong has opened -1.3% lower in their early trade and heading for a -1.5% weekly drop. Shanghai is also down but only by -0.2% and heading for a -0.3% weekly slip. The ASX200 is up a respectable +0.5% in midday trade and heading for a stellar +2.0% weekly gain. The NZX50 is up +0.6% in late trade today but that still means a weekly fall of -0.6%.
SWAP & BONDS RATES RETREAT
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. They are probably sharply lower. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 0.80%.The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is now at 1.77% and down -12 bps. The China Govt 10yr is now at 2.92% and down -4 bps. The New Zealand Govt 10 year rate is now at 2.53% and down -5 bps from this time yesterday. That still leaves it above the earlier RBNZ fix for that 10yr rate at 2.50% (-6 bps). The US Govt ten year has fallen a rather sharp -8 bps to just on 1.53%.
NZ DOLLAR SOFT
The Kiwi dollar is now at 70.9 and more than -¾c lower from where we were at this time yesterday. However, against the Aussie we are unchanged at 96 AUc. Against the euro we are at 61.4 euro cents which is -40 bps lower. The TWI-5 is now at 74.8, down -50 bps, but still well above the top of the 72-74 range we have been in for most of the past eleven months.
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BITCOIN SLIPS
The bitcoin price is now at US$61,114, down -2.4% from where we were at this time yesterday. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been modest at just under +/- 1.7%.
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48 Comments
And iron ore just keeps on falling.
It was said to be the absolutely perfect scenario (see: below). The vaccines put an end to the pandemic within sight, combined with intractable problems getting any iron out of the ground and then shipped somewhere useful, demand for the commodity was expected to be robust and better while at the same time supply would remain constricted.
With American consumers going bananas, and a resurgent China consuming as much of the metal as could be sourced, both supply and demand were declared to be manifest tailwinds for a long time to come.
“Everyone” said it was practically guaranteed as the iron (and steel) price reached toward the stratosphere: Link
Big call. But this blogger did call the same thing for Oil well ahead of time.
Iron ore price heads for zero. May go negative
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2021/11/iron-ore-price-heads-for-zero-…
In early Asian trading, gold is at US$1795/oz and up +US$20 from this time yesterday.
Treasury real yield curves traded more negative, worse outcomes anticipated.
Do we really think there's going to be a border around Auckland of any kind come Xmas?
Checking vaccination certificates is not workable. The queues would be even worse than they usually are. Hours at checkpoints and then again in queues.
There's not going to be capacity for testing between Xmas and New Years either, due to the way the days and stats fall.
The government needs to front around this, because 'the Aucklanders are coming' might be the kick up the arse the slacker parts of NZ need to get vaccinated. The fact we don't know what the options on the table are suggests there should be real questions about whether travel out of Auckland is going to be allowed at all.
The government are a shambles. Mixed messages all over the place.
Hipkins says that times will need to be booked in for entering and leaving Auckland, then Robertson dismisses that.
Which is right, but how could they come out with such a hare-brained idea to begin with?
President of Police Association said it all didn’t he. That is we are not mission impossible and don’t try and off load responsibility for all your daft schemes and failures onto the police force. Xmas is seven weeks away, but people will want start moving to family outside of Auckland, and the other way, two or more beforehand. There will be nothing to monitor and control this movement in place by then. So either Auckland remains locked down or it opens up. On top of that, people cannot be forced to be vaxed, and like it or not, to alienate and segregate them and then curtail their freedom of movement is neither moral nor legal. If vaccinations had been underway in volume by March, this predicament could have been avoided, and here the government is seeking to impose on the rights of civilians, just to cover that failing. “Kiwis have a right to travel by law,” one experts take on the Bolton High Court decision and that don’t mean just internationally does it.
Huge money printing. The only reason for it that I can see is to give the govt enough time to roll out the extremely slow vaccination purchase.
Bike bridge no bike bridge.
3 waters: you can opt out. No. Change of plan: forced through.
Complete and utter melt down.
Good ol' expert Shaun Hendy is saying NZ will be in Red Light 2/3s of 2022, so not looking great... I think they'll crack under pressure and remove the boundary restrictions around Auckland for height of summer and then clamp back down... inevitably the virus will spread everywhere and we'll be back in panic mode.
The same Shaun Hendy who predicted 7000 deaths per year at an 80% vaccination rate? I suspect we're about to find out just how accurate his modelling is, but my guess is "not very".
His job isn't to make accurate predictions. It's to come to conclusions which the people funding him happen to like.
You're talking about the man who wrote this:
https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/silencing-science
But I guess you don't do irony when it involves yourself.
I think the point is that Hendy is extremely well qualified to comment on the pandemic and what is likely to happen next. His understanding of the empirical evidence from across the world is probably unparalleled in NZ and his forecasts thus far have been accurate.
But is he well qualified to determine the level of risk and death that the public is willing to allow? To me that is the role of a politician not a scientist. Hendry has been calling for a level 4 circuit breaker despite our covid death rate being about 1/30 of the road toll since this lockdown started, it’s hard to call that an accurate assessment of risk.
While he may be a scientist. Modelling and forecasting is an art not a science. He will be using assumptions, some of which will be flawed. The response is also not scientific, it is political.
I doubt we will even see the traffic lights. The rest of the world is open and accepting of Covid. Politically we will have no choice but to join them.
Agreed. I text a few mates and we go for fish and chips and see where we end up. Sometimes it's Maraetai, sometimes it's Tairua. That's part of living in NZ in summer. I'm not pre-registering our journey, sitting in a checkpoint or giving details of where I want to go before I leave.
Its getting ridiculous. People don't want vaccination targets, they want dates. If they did set a date to give us all certainty, the vaccination rate on that date is probably going to be within +-2% of what they expected, why be so pedantic. Especially when Aus stopped lockdown with 20% less vaccinated than our targets (or 300% more unvaccinated if you flip it over), why are we pissing around over a few percent.
Believe you have identified the solution. Something mealy mouthed like - 90% was only ever an ideal indication, advice from public health authorities is that NZ is now well positioned to free up all domestic travel and this is supported by the critical improvements now completed by us, to health services. In truth NZ will then be on a wing and a prayer.
Exactly. Post colonial genocide against the indigenous version 2.0.
Govt would never hear the end of it.
There'd be legal claims galore mounted citing lack of protection under indigenous protections.
That's basically in a nutshell what the govt are terrified of... the majority unvaccinated turning on them claiming Maori and PI genocide. I would even go so far as to say war claims would be taken to The Hague.
Not joking.
"Seven of ten reservoirs in the Auckland water storage system are now 100% full, ......New Zealand's hydro lakes are also fuller than average for this time of year with recent inflows about normal."
Must be climate change for this to be going so well. Short while ago all the when the dams and lakes were low it was all due to climate change, man made of course.
The new Water Care CEO will be using CC to push for more dams or lifting levels in existing. Its likely that this is another infrastructure issue for Akl. Irrespective of CC and solely due to population increase. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can give a time line of these Akl dams.
Only problem is I understand Akl is up to its borrowing limit but Water Care isn't if it were seperated out. This is thanks to some sort of borrowing consolidation over the whole of Akl. which includes Water Care.
Not sure about climate change causing the dry, but La Nina weather patterns are back, causing the wet. La Nina appears to trump.
In the normal course we would get used to full dams, then in a couple of years El Nino will resume and we will be back to crucifying car washers.
Residual denial aside (and there ain't much these days, luckily - it's a bit like the way those old çommunist' bleaters went quiet, in another era) the problem with anthropogeninc forcing is the excess of energy trapped in the system. When energy is concentrated, weather events get more extreme. That goes both ways; drought and downpour.
I'm convinced of man-made climate warming. And terrified of the possibilities. However ""When energy is concentrated, weather events get more extreme"" is unproven. I first heard it after that hurricane destroyed New Orleans 16 years ago and we were assured more hurricanes would be hitting the USA - but then the next ten years were exceptionally quiet. Maybe you are right but it is unproven. Consider the worlds average temperature is just under 290 Kelvin so a three degree increase would represent about 1% more atmospheric energy. Changes to ocean currents are much more likely to cause unexpected dramatic weather events. Notice how ocean shipping worries more about the 'roaring forties' than the well named Pacific Ocean so maybe extreme weather and total energy are unconnected.
Please emphasize we are changing something we do not understand - the result is likely to bad. But leave out all references to 'extreme weather' - it will go down well with the converted but not persuade skeptics and deniers to rethink.
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