Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank raised its floating rate by +50 bps to 5.00%. The Cooperative Bank raised their floating rate by +50 bps to 5.45%. WBS raised theirs by +25 bps to 5.24%. Avanti Finance raised theirs +40 bps to 4.95%. On carded fixed rates, WBS raised them too.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Kookmin Bank raised most of its TD offers. The Cooperative Bank raised all its TD rates and most of its savings account rates.. Heartland Bank raised its popular Direct Call account by +45 bps to 1.50%. It also raised both its Notice Saver accounts by +50 bps to 1.90% (32-day) and 2.50% (90-day). Kiwibank also raised its Notice Saver accounts, to 1.25% (32-day) and 2.15% (90-day).
'NOT IN A GREAT PLACE NOW'
RBNZ Governor says the central bank needs to 'retain anti-inflation bias in everything we do' to prevent inflation expectations becoming 'baked in' to price setting.
A BETTER WAY TO STAY ON TOP OF BUILDING CONSENT DATA
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LATITUDE SEEKS COMCOM CLEARANCE TO ACQUIRE HUMM CONSUMER FINANCE
Latitude Group has applied to the Commerce Commission for clearance to acquire Humm Group's consumer finance business. The deal would bring the two groups' respective buy-now-pay-later operations together. In NZ Latitude’s main products are installment payment products such as Gem Visa and Genoapay, plus personal loans. Humm’s main products are credit cards such as Q Mastercard, Farmers Mastercard, Flight Centre Mastercard and BNPL products.
A STRUGGLING MARKET
Last week the overall NZX50 fell -1.4% but that masked some rather large shifts by some large component stocks. The property sector stocks fell -1.9% but the rest home/retirement center sector only shed -0.2%. The energy sector fell more than -2% to be -6% lower than a year ago. Among individual stocks, F&P Healthcare (FPH, #1) shed -4.6% last week, an evaporation of more than -$600 mln in capitalisation. Serko (SKO, #44) fell -8.1% in the week. A2 Milk (ATM, #11) was down -6.2%, dropping it a few places. The big winner last week was AirNZ (AIR, #41) which recovered +7.5%. The overall NZX50 market cap is now -8.6% lower than it was a year ago.
WORK & RESIDENCE VISAS SURGE
There was a huge surge in the number of work and residence visas approved in March. More than 13,000 residence visas and 32,600 work visas approved in the month, but student visa numbers are still bouncing along the bottom.
AND ANOTHER EXPANSION
New Zealand is relaunching and "expanding" its Working Holiday Scheme with Singapore - but even after that it will still be a very small scheme.
SERVICE SECTOR EXPANDS EVEN AS SENTIMENT IS NEGATIVE
The measure of activity in the service sector surprised somewhat with a shift from contraction to expansion in March. The two key sub-indexes of New Orders/Business (60.1) and Activity/Sales (53.8) both continued their upwards momentum. However, Employment (48.5) and Supplier Deliveries (40.1) remain in contraction. In addition, the proportion of negative comments stands at 57.5%, although this is down from 61.5% in February.
A BIG DROP IMMINENT?
There is another dairy auction tomorrow morning and there is no certainty it will bring higher prices. In fact the previous two has brought declines of -0.9% and -1.0% respectively. In fact, this one could deliver a much larger fall. The dairy futures market suggests it could be as high as -7.5% for WMP and -3.0% for SMP. We shall see.
WAITING TO SEE THE WHITES OF THE EYES IN INFLATION
The minutes of the last RBA board meeting made it clear that they wanted to see actual evidence of rising inflation, and rising wages before they acted to raise their Cash Target Rate.
GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trading, gold is little-changed from this time yesterday at just on US$1978/oz.
EQUITIES VERY MIXED
Wall Street ended unchanged in their Monday trading for the S&P500. Tokyo has opened strong but is now only up +0.3% in later morning trade. Hong Kong is back trading and is very weak, down -2.7% in early Tuesday trade. Shanghai has opened flat. The ASX200 is up +0.7% in afternoon trade, but the NZX50 is down -0.2% in late trade.
SWAPS UP
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. They are likely to be firmer by more than +5 bps as Thursday's slip is reversed. The 90 day bank bill rate is up sharply again, up a further very unusual +12 bps at 1.91%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark bond rate is up +3 bps from this morning, now at 3.06%. The China Govt 10yr is still at 2.86%. And the New Zealand Govt 10 year bond rate is up +6 bps at 3.49% and still just below the earlier RBNZ fix for that 10yr rate at 3.51% (up +3 bps). The US Govt ten year is now at 2.84% and a small -2 bps slip since where we opened this morning. But this new level is the highest since later 2018.
NZ DOLLAR HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is now at 67.3 68.3 USc and little-changed since this this morning. Against the Aussie we are also unchanged at 91.5 AUc. Against the euro we are marginally firmer on that basis at 62.5 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is now at 73.6, and and little-changed from where we opened this morning.
BITCOIN HOLDS
Bitcoin is firmer, now at US$40,760 and up +0.9% since this this morning's open. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been high at just under +/-3.5%.
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