A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Monday; some minor rate movement, inflation pressure high in grocery sector, Auckland heading to 2 mln, swaps up, NZ stable, & more

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.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».