Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you already work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
TSB, Kookmin and ICBC all raised fixed rates today. ICBC's rates are currently market-leading.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
ICBC and Kookmin Bank also raised term deposit rates.
THE INFLATIONARY PRESSURE INTENSIFIES
Grocery supplier cost increases remain very high. The prices suppliers charge supermarkets rose faster in November, now rising above a +10% pa rate, according to Infometrics monitoring of the Foodstuffs database.
WINDING DOWN
Just under a third of homes brought to auction nationally sold under the hammer at last week's residential property auctions. As this activity winds down for the year the sales rate has improved, but only slightly
LOOKING AHEAD 25 YEARS
Stats NZ has been forecasting population growth in our towns and regions. This update suggests deaths will likely outnumber births in just over two-thirds of territorial authority areas by 2048, in 25 years time. Everywhere will have fewer children then than now, they forecast. And they say about 40% of our population growth will be in Auckland, which will likely reach a population of 2 mln by then. Generally, its an upper North Island future, with only Canterbury and Tasman being the only southern regions growing faster than the national average.
BIG SALES FOR BIG RIGS
Although overall sales of new commercial vehicles are quite strong, the November data for the big, heavy vehicles is very strong. Over the last 12 month heavy vehicle registrations have been strong, staging a complete recovery from the pandemic lows, now totaling 2,668 registrations – the fourth highest annual total on record.
STILL IN RECOVERY MODE
Infometrics' assessment of inbound tourism data reports that tourist arrivals totaled 161,600 in October, up 6.8% from 151,300 in September. There were 86,300 Australian arrivals in October, bringing Australian visitor numbers to 72% of pre-pandemic levels. Arrivals from the UK, Canada, and United States have surpassed 60% of their pre-pandemic levels. Kiwi tourist departures outnumbered inbound arrivals departures by 34,400, but they point out this gap has been shrinking steadily over the past few months. Queenstown Airport arrivals were at 94% of pre-pandemic levels in October, while Auckland and Wellington were at 54% and 66% respectively.
BIG FISH SWALLOWS SMALL FISH
50 person independent insurance broker network ICIB has been taken over by the ASX-listed AUB Group. It is being folded into a group that just announced an upgrade to its 2022/23 profit forecast of +35%. AUB has about 4000 staff, of which 1050 are in New Zealand (before the ICIB absorption). Even after that, the locally merged broker business will just be New Zealand's fifth largest.
DELAY TO PUMPED HYDRO DECISION
Findings from the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment's NZ Battery Project, which is considering a massive pumped hydro electricity storage project in Otago, due to be considered by Cabinet this month won't now be considered until 2023. MBIE says the delay isn't expected to materially impact the Project’s work programme. The findings to be considered are feasibility studies from phase one of three. The NZ Battery Project was established in 2020 to investigate ways to address the dry year problem, when the hydro-electricity lakes are low and fossil fuels are used to cover the shortfall of electricity supply. See more on this from our Of Interest podcast here.
SWAP RATES FIRMER
Wholesale swap rates were likely firmer again today. The real action comes near the close however. Our chart will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +2 bps at 4.51%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 3.38% and little-changed from this morning. The China 10 year bond rate is at 2.93% and down -1 bp. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.15%, and up another +5 bps and still well above the earlier RBNZ fix for the NZGB 10 year which was up +5 bps to 4.09%. The UST 10 year is now at 3.59% and up +6 bps from Saturday but unchanged from where we opened this morning.
EQUITIES HESITANT
The NZX50 has opened this week down -0.6% in late trade today, after last week's -0.6% fall which was led by profit-taking at F&P Healthcare. Today it is Ryman, Ifratil, EBOS and Vital in a more general retreat. The ASX200 is also down -0.5% in early afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened its week down -0.4%. Hong Kong is %. Shanghain has started %. The S&P500 futures suggest Wall Street will open up +0.6%.
GOLD SLIPS
In early Asian trade, gold is at US$1791/oz and down -US$7 from this morning's open.
NZD LEVEL-PEGGING
The Kiwi dollar is firmer, now at 63.9 USc and down -20 bps from this morning. Against the AUD we are holding at 94.4 AUc. Against the euro we are still at 60.8 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 is now at 72.4 and down marginally, but only back to this time Friday.
BITCOIN SLIPS
After going through a very unusual quiet and stable lower price patch following the FTX collapse, the bitcoin price has fallen today, now down to US$16,938 and -1.3% lower than where we started this morning. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been lowish +/- 0.9%. See this.
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42 Comments
I see the TSB 5.79% mortgage rate has finally gone, replaced by a comparitively low 6.29% for over 20% equity
Ah there we go, Labour's opening up the immigration flood gates...
Kinda. Will take some time for the bureaucrats to wake up from the slumber. I wouldn't hold your breath.
I am not a fan of mass immigration, but the announcement of urgency for immigration of medical professions is welcomed and much overdue.
Nurses and doctors from the Philippines in one door and resident medicos in New Zealand out the other - to Australia for twice the wage?
Seems like a pointless exercise to me. Worse. One that leaves whichever country is training the workers at the bottom of the system, with no medical staff at all.
Make it cheaper for our resident staff to stay here, and we don't need imported staff. We know how to do that, but we won't, of course. It might affect the net worth of too many nonmedical citizens.
(To borrow from below "New Zealand has made essentially the same mistake as the Australia. It has created a system where all the current homeowners are terrified of housing becoming more affordable because that means their primary asset is not increasing in value the way they want”)
It’s not just money that is driving nurses out, I quit at 60 after being assaulted, the police were great but the prosecution service would not prosecute because they said they did not know who was responsible. This was despite witnesses.
I was a bit stunned when I heard just the other day what an ED nurse could make in Australia compared to here.
It must really suck when the message you get is that you aren't valued in your own country because the government will happily keep importing workers in your field of expertise to keep wages low.
Its utterly demoralizing. More NZ trained nurses will leave to Aus, as will those who've recently obtained NZ citizenship. For the majority of those nurses arriving in NZ Australia is the end goal. Given the shortage in Australia as well, I'll be interested to see how many actually apply.
More truck drivers thank goodness...
Along with changes to the Green List, all teachers are now included in the work-to-residence pathway, along with drain layers, motor mechanics and other roles
There is also a new temporary residence pathway for bus and truck drivers through a new sector agreement to help employers attract workers.
The Government will also start reissuing visas for Post Study Work Visa holders locked out by Covid-19 and streamline a Specific Purpose work visa for long-term critical workers.
Are you sure that's not as good an idea as waiting 5-10 years to train locals and have them build up experience?
Does it take 5-10 years to train bus & truck drivers?
What's happened to all the pipeline of training nurses & teachers - heading off overseas for better pay whilst we replace them for cheaper immigrants?
Much overdue? Big understatement. This protocol, priority should have been enabled the moment the border was closed not only for immigrants but even more so for returnees, clinically qualified. The health system was dire then, dire now. And suggest that a great deal of $ millions spent on reassigning the MoH, and changing their jerseys, would have been first better spent on those exact priorities plus bolstering services at the actual coalface.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/pm-jacinda-ardern-fronts-post-ca…
“the Government hasn’t set a target for the number of migrants the new settings hope to attract.”
And why would they – targets in this arena have been a continual embarrassment for them.
“Asked about added pressure on infrastructure, Wood said the country needed immigration “to deal with” improving the required infrastructure.”
Not that far away from simply saying we need immigration "to deal with" the consequences of a “no targets” immigration policy.
Hamilton East Nothing like a good hanging to sharpen the mind!
Tax cuts announced before Xmas? nah we will save them til Oct 23.
You can open the boarders for mid wife immigration but Aussie is paying 30% more, only a few will walk in the door. Still this U Turn is as embarrassing as the China zero covid backdown.....
The world is a big place, not every nurse is needed in Aussie. There are only 6 English speaking countries of any size in the world, 3 of them have awful weather, 2 of them hate immigrants, maybe NZ ain’t that bad after all.
Cost of living a killer... Australia will scoop them up.
Why would any educated person want to come and work in NZ when they have better standards of living in other places.
We lack in basic education unless put kids to private schools. The health system is cracking under its own weight. The housing is just awfully expensive if need a decent place to live.
A lot needs to change. Yeah this is a good place to attract the truck drivers and the bottom rung educated.
The qell educated if any come will be the only ones who are not about to qualify for any other places and will probably use NZ as a stepping stone to move else where once eligible
Just as an example, Nurses are paid less in the UK, and their real estate is more expensive.
Real estate is cheaper in the UK.
Not true for desirable areas
Real Estate can be cheap in both places, but rarely where most of the populations want to live.
Not to mention the quality difference, in the UK you're more likely to end up with something smaller and terraced.
I don’t know if ‘awful weather’ is as fundamental as you think it is. Opportunity, proximity to the rest of the world/home countries, cost of living are all massive things which NZ is far from world leading on, even if we have fairly nice weather.
And which 3 have awful weather? Yeah it’s a bit average in England and Canada. But at least in England it’s easy and cheap to get spells of nice weather within 2-3 hours flying time.
The south of England actually has pretty good summers.
My boarders pay me rent, but my borders keep me safe. Spelling and grammar is still important people...not just for the over 60's!
Custard, sums it up. Also quite some centuries ago Sir Walter Scott summed up this government too. “Oh what tangled webs we weave, when we first practice to deceive.” Think the three waters exposure, attempted subversion of accepted democratic process, sums that up too.
And if you wanted to see Wood squirm – ask her to quantify or define exactly what “the required infrastructure” is.
“A few Kiwis who couldn’t get a spot did find another way to get in, a wide-open backdoor. They would get to Auckland on a transit flight, but not get on the last leg.
Newshub can reveal the Government considered locking up those Kiwis after the loophole was uncovered.
Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show officials thought about making it an offence punishable by up to six months in jail or a $12,000 fine.
“Not a single person in any of the emails raised an ethical problem with putting New Zealand citizens in jail for coming back to their own country,” said lawyer Tudor Clee.
not kind
“Australia has made essentially the same mistake as the US. It has created a system where all the current homeowners are terrified of housing becoming more affordable because that means their primary asset is not increasing in value the way they want”
Aussie and America need Cindy Ardern who wants to deliver on increasing house prices and affordable houses at the same time (her sentiments not mine).
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/australia-warned-we-ve-made-the-sam…
Everywhere will have fewer children then than now, they forecast
Is that fewer as a percentage or absolute amount?
I’m sure hoping I still have the same amount.
There's some interesting stories in those Stats nz population projections.
Waikato region to overtake Wellington region by 2033.
Big truck sales are strong. Excellent that means there's no need to import drivers as no one would buy a truck without knowing a driver was available. Basic business sense.
Aren't there at least 10,000 lay abouts that could fulfil the role of truck and bus drivers? Free training and if don't work after that cut off or drastically reduce benefits.
Not sure we want most of those in charge of a truck or bus.
Especially if they haven’t been drug tested.
Feel free to convince employers to take on these lay abouts. Train them up and have them not turn up to work or worse cost their business time and money.
Maybe we could bring in mandated employment quotas. 1/3rd Maori or Pacifica, 1/3rd Layabouts, 1/3rd General Hiring process.
Hmmm Nigel H... So in your world truck drivers, bus drivers and heavy machinery operators are one step above layabouts in your world. Suggest you change your perspective on some of NZ's most skilled front line workforce!
Families cut back as food prices soar by 10% - stuff
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/130729441/people-slash-spending-plans-…
People were even putting home renovations on hold, Alexander said.
“It looks like the availability of tradies will be improving quite a bit soon.”
Only 5% to go Tony, Yeah Right!
Oh mate, calm down... almost needs to be a daily comment limit here.
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