Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
ANZ raised some key home loan rates. More here.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
ANZ also raised a set of popular term deposit rates. China Construction Bank has also tweaked rates higher, but only for $100,000 or more.
SCREWS TIGHTEN
There has been a significant drop in median house prices and sale volumes at the start of 2022, according to the latest update from the REINZ. These declines were more than the normal seasonal changes. The retreats were nationwide, even if a few provinces weren't affected. Unsold inventory is growing. Auckland's median selling price was down by -$80,000. The number of properties for sale rose +10% in January alone, and it has now increased by more than +50% since August last year.
DIASPORA
More people are leaving New Zealand long-term than are arriving long-term. In 2021 we recorded a net immigration loss of -3900.
EASY MONEY, THE NEW CRYPTO
The carbon price is on the move higher again. In the past two+ weeks it has risen by more than +$10/NZU and is now touching $85/NZU. That's up +6% per week. Better than bitcoin. The pace of this latest run up is some of the fastest we have seen for this commodity and probably reflects the "James Shaw put" where financial speculators have worked out that they can't lose and that the NZ taxpayer is effectively underwriting these gains. Still, the NZU price is not really catching up to the EU price (€92.60 = NZ$158), now 58% of the EU price. At the start on 2022 it was 57%; at the start of 2021 the NZU was 66% of the EU carbon price.
HARVESTING DISASTER
Federated Farmers is pointing out that the recent rains have largely ruined the season for the arable crop industry, with only Southland unscathed. Hawkes Bay has major problems, and the major issues for Canterbury wheat farmers will likely result in a shortage of good quality grain to turn into flour. Food costs are about to rise further.
THE EARLY SIGNALS ARE FOR HIGHER DAIRY PRICES
There is another dairy auction tomorrow morning. The dairy derivatives market suggests that the WMP could rise +5% or more, and SMP by a similar about. If that happens, it would push overall dairy prices back close to their record highs in April 2013. Local supply difficulties from the recent storm won't hurt price sentiment given that international supply is also under pressure.
JAPAN REBOUNDS
Japan reported its advance Q4-2021 economic activity data today. They say their GDP rose at an annualised rate of 5.4% in the period, lower than the 5.8% expected but much better than the -2.7% fall in Q3 (which was revised to be less than the originally reported -3.6% fall).
A SCRAMBLE FOR 'SOLID ELECTRICITY'
The aluminium price is up again today, very near its all-time record again. Aluminium is sometimes called 'solid electricity' because each tonne takes about 14 MWh hours of electricity to produce, enough to run a small house for about three years. Tiwai Point produces 250,000 tonnes annually when at full production and uses about uses about 15,000 MWh of electricity per day – the annual consumption of a thousand average households.
LOCAL PANDEMIC UPDATE
In NSW, there has been a rise to 8,201 new community cases reported yesterday, now with 50,802 active locally-acquired cases, and another 16 daily deaths. There are now 1,583 in hospital there, off their high. In Victoria they reported 8,162 more new infections yesterday, also a rise. There are now 50,967 active cases in that state - but there were 20 deaths there. Queensland is reporting 5,286 new cases and 10 deaths. In South Australia, new cases have slipped to 1027 yesterday and 2 more deaths. The ACT has 455 new cases and no deaths, and Tasmania 513 new cases and no deaths. Overall in Australia, almost 24,000 new cases have been reported so far although not all counts are in yet. In New Zealand, there were 19 cases stopped at the border, plus 744 new cases reported in the community.
GOLD HIGHER
In early Asian trading, gold is now at US$1871/oz, and up +US$12 from this time yesterday.
EQUITIES LOWER
The S&P ended the day down -0.4% on Wall Street. Tokyo, which fell sharply yesterday, has opened today down just -0.1%. Hong Kong is down -0.5% at its open; Shanghai is flat. The ASX200 is down -0.4% in early afternoon trade. The NZX50 is down -0.2% in late afternoon trade
SWAPS FIRM
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. They are likely to have risen today. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp at 1.22% from this time yesterday. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark bond rate is up +8 bps from yesterday to 2.18%. The China Govt 10yr is little-changed at 2.81%. The New Zealand Govt 10 year bond rate is now at 2.82% (up +4 bps from this time yesterday) and the same as the earlier RBNZ fix for that 10yr rate at 2.82% (up +4 bps). The US Govt ten year is now at 1.98%, and up +2 bps from this time yesterday.
NZ DOLLAR STAYS SOFT
The Kiwi dollar is little-changed today at 66.2 USc, if anything marginally softer again. Against the Aussie we are soft too at 92.8 AUc. Against the euro we are still soft as well at 58.5 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is down to just on 70.8.
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BITCOIN FIRMS
Bitcoin is a little firmer today at US$42,586 and up +1.9% from where we were this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just on +/- 1.5%.
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67 Comments
It's not beyond the bounds of possibility.
The March auction is highly likely to exhaust the 2022 cost containment reserve of 7 million units with this reserve coming into play at a price of $70.
That would mean that the Government auctions off 26.3 million NZUs in 2022 for a return to the Government coffers of something between $2 billion and $4 billion, depending on the price achieved at each of the four auctions in 2022. It is becoming a nice little earner of Government revenue.
KeithW
If the price does reach $160 this year it would still only be adding abut 40c per litre to the price of petrol.
This is why the Climate Change Commission believes that in time the price needs to eventually rise to $250 per tonne of carbon to get the necessary behaviour change. And that estimate was before James Shaw moved the goal posts in relation to 2030.
KeithW
Hi Keith,
Thank - you for your excellent input. Always super informative.
One tries to be positive but looking at the real-world impacts of Mr Shaw's policy implementation, I see NZ being considerably worse off financially and am dubious that the quasi-destruction of our ag economy will have any meaningful impacts on the global CC. Hopefully I speak completely out of ignorance????
I'm also dubious that the policy settings are in place to encourage the development of cutting-edge green technologies, especially in this present protracted Covid economy, by greater minds than mine. Significant R & D, capital, marketing and all round expertise is needed to create cash cow "green" tech companies. I'm hopeful but.....
Honestly, the more I understand, the less it makes sense! Is the replacement income meant to come from further immigration, if so does this not also have CC implications?
Thanks
You need to look beyond EVs. They're only a stopgap. The future will be nuclear fusion (not nuclear fission) in which regard did no one notice the news the other day which showed that Britain is building a huge nuclear fusion plant. This will be a world first and puts them way ahead of the pack. Nuclear fusion will cause no environmental damage and will be the last straw for fossil fuels. It will also stop green hydrogen advocates dead in their tracks. In particular Japan where car companies are heavily investing in green hydrogen and will also cause pause in the thinking of Meridian and Contact Energy plans to develop the aluminium smelter site in Bluff as a green energy site after the smelter shuts down around 2024.
while fusion itself obviously produces very little environmental damage the problem is that it could unleash a pollution tidal wave as other resources are used at vastly greater rates (although we'd also have more energy to clean up a bit more...), plus those resources might run out faster.
A bit like Jevon's paradox.
Hold your horses! Fusion hasn't even generated a net energy return yet! All this hype about fusion being nearer, it essentially just that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY&ab_channel=SabineHossenfelder
britains "huge nuclear fusion plant"? Which one is that?
Is it the one in the news that broke the record which is not a huge new plant, but small existing experiment?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633
Or is it the huge experimental one that is being build in France?
Or is it this one General Fusion are hoping to build?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57512229
None of these will generate commercial scale electricity. That, as usual for fusion, is 'just' 20 years away.
The nz taxpayer is not underwriting the speculators gains . The govt is paid more at the auctions ass the price goes up .
It is having to release more units that it holds in reserve , but until it runs out of them , it is making money out of the higher price , not losing it .
We will know more in May , when the govt plan for climate action comes out, as to wether the long term cost.
Bit of a shame the speculators are reaping hay the farmers, foresters and conservationers are planting , but thats nothing new.
A new poll shows just 7 per cent of homeowners want house prices to seriously fall. A further 18 per cent want them to drop “a little” while a massive 62 per cent don’t want them to drop.
Poll from Talbot Mills – Labour’s private pollster
Labour and RBNZ to the rescue? - look their own polling...they only care about that voting base after all.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300517990/housing-crisis-poll-s…
The poll is useful to debunk the previous 1 news poll claiming an 'overwhelming' number of people wanting house prices to fall.
It is also useful in highlighting the bias in the previous 1 news poll and we can probably work out how many overwhelming number of non homeowners were represented in that poll using the current one.
On a more holistic view, to included non owners in polls of such nature simply invites unsolicited parties to evaluate someone elses' asset. Non market participants has no business in the market.
Everyone is a housing market participant unless they live in their car or a tent. We are all born with a housing short which we have to fill in some way.
More importantly, when the government is weighing up whether to act to support house prices, they will certainly consider the opinions of those who rent, because they vote too.
Wrong.
You're obfuscating renting and owning.
Renters are market participants only in the rental market and not ownership.
The rise and fall of houses prices are non of their business, theirs is only on rents.
If I applied your muddled logic, every male is also a market participant in women since they're born short of women.
To pursue such thinking is a blatant case of self-entitlement.
They are clearly linked markets and closely related. For one thing, house prices strongly affect people's ability to leave the rental market. Higher rents and higher house prices are also somewhat correlated, in the same way dividend yield and share price are somewhat correlated.
Your comparison to women is so insane I don't feel the need to answer it.
Most NZ milling flour comes from Australia, so the main price effect of grain-harvest woes will be feed-grain prices. A delayed harvest is manageable as long as the grain does not sprout. The post-harvest dryers may be busy to bring down the moisture level.
KeithW
Aluminium is sometimes called 'solid electricity' because each tonne takes about 14 MWh hours of electricity to produce, enough to run a small house for about three years.
Exactly, which is why Rio Tinto has the government eating out of the palm of their hand.
NZ is uniquely positioned to produce a lot of renewable electricity, but we don't have the luxury of exporting it as easily as our continental cousins do, what with being an isolated country in the South Pacific and all. We need to turn it into something we can export, because heaven forbid we actually make use of it domestically to improve our own quality of life, when there's money to be made selling it on international markets instead.
Megan Woods has a hard-on for hydrogen for this very reason; not because it's any kind of solution to the energy or environmental issues we're currently facing, but because it's a good way to make money from our renewables without having to rely on Rio Tinto, or shiploads of bauxite from across the ditch.
So while we're busy encouraging everyone to drive around in electric cars, at a time when importing record amounts of coal isn't even enough to keep up with the demand we've already got, we're also spending tens of millions of dollars developing new and inventive ways to send our green electricity overseas.
The mind boggles. It truly does.
If everyone moved to the bottom of the South Island , that electricity could be used.
Problem is , we've only got 5 million people in a country the size of Great Britain. The cost of upgading the national grid to carry that electrcity north , means out powerbills would probably go up , even if the power was free at source.
not that i don't think they should not uppgrade the grid , just bear in mind there is no cheap option here for reducing emissions etc.
Conversely you can send the electricity North provided you have the transmission capability which Transpower (TP) do not have and are unlikely to do anything about. The Electricity Authority although ostensibly independent is still a political animal. It won't make a call on upgrading/re-inforcing building new transmission to NI to take Tiwai power. If the smelter gets booted out or leaves for whatever reason. It'll be a minimum of 5 years for TP to get their act together and be able to transmit any power North if the smelter shuts down. may be some notice period but I doubt enough for TP to respond in sufficient time. The Labour/Greens idea of using Tiwai's power for hydrogen is pie in the sky. Meridian aren't going to provide electricity for free.
The smelter leaving Southland. All those highly paid who work for the smelter will get jobs elsewhere. Southlands economy will suffer and I can see the local mayor pleading and begging with the govt to do a deal with the smelter. Was it Winston who proposed buying the smelter?
It'll be left to Meridian to cut a deal and the govt to add a sweetner if necessary. The Nats were no better.
There's a data centre proposed, land purchased, at Makarewa, which just happens to be a major node in the distribution network. So we onshore some cloud computing, crypto mining, and the like...and export it at close to the speed of light, without burning bunker fuel.....
What if the 'green power' data centre was instead used to distribute and backup endless Disney channel reruns of the Star Wars franchise? Store Pornhub accounts? Or process Visa transactions globally? How sure are you that blockchain services are less relevant to our future?
With 260% government debt to GDP, the Bank of Japan announced that they will have an unlimited bid to buy 10-year government bonds at 0.25% rates.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/boj-announces-plan-buy-unli…
What happened Tuesday?
After the Speaker of the House failed with Gunatanamo Bay type torture tactics, the NZ Police plead with the army to help deal with domestic protesters. Meanwhile the Prime Minister of New Zealand announces an intent to review Protest Legislation.
For an "imported" protest, that represents an "extreme minority" of Kiwis, our Govt seems awfully scared and in a massive rush to adhere to the Banana Republic Book of Leadership.
Maybe we better have an emergency session tonight to pass some protest laws under urgency.
Democracy for the Dupes
Same stroke being pulled in Canada (albeit the protests there are definitely more severe and impactful, and the stakes are higher).
Somehow a "fringe minority" is so powerful that you have to enact what amounts to Martial Law, with the ability to freeze assets, deploy the military etc, in order to deal with them.
What it really seems like is that leaders such as Ardern and Trudeau struggle with the notion that although they control the narrative, not everybody agrees - and people can use tools like social media, YouTube livestreams etc to distribute their own message.
You can see this reflected in some of Ardern's commentary on the protest. She simply declares "they're all anti-vaxxers" and that should be enough for us to blindly accept the statement by decree (despite the fact you can clearly see from the placards, social posts etc that the primary focus is anti-mandate).
Surely it would have been more productive to try and address some of the protestors' concerns, e.g. "we understand there is opposition to the mandate, and we want to remove it when safe to do so, but we had to take this action to protect the community and health system". Whether or not that is true is besides the point ... at least an honest attempt would have been made to reach out the olive branch.
I do hope it is resolved amicably and peacefully, for the benefit of local residents and businesses.
This government's so unwilling to negotiate or address the grievances of its constituents. They really should be more humble because there's an absolute surge of discontent heading their way. You could say bring on the election but I doubt they'll have the heart to contest it...lame ducks now, all of them.
I guess I have to put my hand up and say this protest movement does all seem to me to be a lot more akin to the ultra dipshit anti establishment movement that's taken hold in the states, where those in the minority want to decry a rigged or corrupted democracy, just because they don't get their way.
There was a free and open election in NZ in 2020, in which the voting public gave an overall endorsement to the Labour government off the back of their initial covid response. They didn't even need MMP unlike the first time. Next year there gets to be another election, and if this random collection of self interested types is representing a silent majority we will find that out.
Then people throw around words like Guantanamo Bay, Apartheid South Africa, and "Freedom" without having the first idea of what any of that actually means or entails.
Long may the nonsense stay in the fringes, although I fear with the growing turmoil the planet is going to be under in coming decades we're only going to see more of it.
The centre left and centre right have both let down large segments of the population, the lower-middle and middle income households. The major party 'choices' in terms of voting are awful.
Resentment is growing. I am sure this is in part a product of that. Trump was.
The 'left' in particular, both here and abroad, is not delivering. Well, it's delivering on woke crap, but not on what 50-60% of the population desperately need.
We expect the 'right' to be looking out for the top half, but not the 'left', right?
It's pretty f$$%ed up, man.
Depends on the duration of time you are appealing to. What we are seeing in NZ is the same sort of problem most developing nations face, aging populations, shrinking workforce, outsourced jobs, and mature capital markets. It is decades in the making, and largely not by design. Any solution is also going to be decades in the making, involving some rather bold predictions by whoever is in power and a huge amount of resistance by large chunks of the population.
If people struggle wearing a mask we are likely doomed.
You are right, many people do not understand freedom. Sadly even fewer understand how easily they are fooled into giving it up.
As I have said many times, freedom is lost through subtle changes in language first. We see it throughout history, and it is a common tactic used by our PM. "They are not protesters", "it is imported", "extreme minority", "Anti-vaxxers". All this language is deliberately crafted and applied so that we the majority do not question any punishment that may be meted out to the defined group(s).
But even more importantly than that, I factor in her "request" to media (before any of this really kicked off) to not interview the protesters or give them any airtime.
As for elections. I do not remember seeing a policy or even an indication that Jab for Job would be implemented, let alone 3 jabs for job. We can only hope that NZ will realise that the best form of MMP will always involve coalitions, so that one nonsencial fringe party never holds such unrestricted power again.
The elections were an endorsement of the governments management of covid, not each and every method used to deal with it therein, that's part of the point of a representative democracy. The alternative is a direct democracy where the public vote on most policy, which has a very low participation rate.
Anyone with a good knowledge of history should be able to draw a distinction between brutal authoritarian regimes and public health response.
It'd all be easier if NZs approach didn't yield significantly better results than the sort of "just do what you personally choose" approach the protestors are after that's worked much worse overseas.
By responding government and the police are giving them the oxygen of publicity. What they need to do, and I know this is a big ask from a politician, is keep their gobs shut and let it fizzle out. In a way better "fringe" groups protesting than at home up to more nefarious and harmful actions.
I agree. You could say that the establishment media (Herald, Stuff, TV 1 & 2, etc) are actually encouraging the protesters by giving them coverage. If these news channels would just ignore them they would melt away very quickly...they are all opportunistic attention seekers.
I disagree. Based on that logic all protests should be ignored.
THe point of the media is to hold the Government to account. At no point has there been any real questioning around the mandate and/or its duration. Not even a flinch when a 3rd jab was added, or the fact we lost hundreds of healthcare workers in the midst of a global pandemic.
Assumes there's a really solid case against the pandemic response, if you spend long enough debating with anyone who feels super strongly against the response, you'll soon go down a near religious like rabbit hole. If there's a superior alternative, most of these people don't have it.
How does the government set a duration for vaccine mandates when they can't predict the outcome of the pandemic?
That religious rabbit hole is also evident with the pro-mandate. Leading any arguement with "the PM said..." does not make it right?
Very few countries were/are offering 3 jabs, this is further proven by the lack of requirement for a booster to enter NZ - it is simply not possible for most people based overseas to get a third.
Further, the science (while still up for debate) suggests each Jab is good for 6-8 weeks. So if you have had 3, you would need at least another 2-3 to get through Winter (which is also when Covid appears to be more problematic).
Honest question - do you really believe the third, let alone a fourth or fifth or ... dose needs to be mandated? My opinion - offered yes, mandated no.
So, yes. I do believe the government can predict/have a position around mandates.
In 2021 we recorded a net immigration loss of -3900.
What's been interesting to me is that it hasn't been the high skilled, high paid industries that have been unable to fill vacancies. It's been low paid, low skilled, often seasonal, vacancies that have went unfilled.
This vindicates many of the views expressed about New Zealands immigration system undermining local wages. Perhaps there should not be a return to "normal" for work visas without reform.
Really?! Perhaps in some media....in reality all the professions and mid level in particular, are having issues filling vacancies. Actually some to the point whole specialist sectors are not delivering. So the first assertions seem incredible or agenda setting for the second para....
There is truth to both arguements.
In many cases the workers are out there, but the wages are not. (Hospo/Agriculture/Tourism)
In other cases the requirements are becoming specifically written to exclude just about everyone. (Primarily corporate roles) These are not there to actually find a real worker, they are written to enable the recruitment of an overseas worker at lower cost. I come across a lot of recruitment data and see ridiculous examples all the time.
- "Graduate role" combined with "Ideally 10+ years industry experience"
- "[insert bespoke internal system] knowledge a must"
- "[insert qualification not offered in NZ] preferable"
In some cases, there is a genuine shortage (Medical/Tech/Risk)
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