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
Bank of China raised fixed rates.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Squirrel Money's peer-to-peer rates have broadened to offer a wider range of real estate loan-backed opportunities for savers. And some backed by personal loans.
TOUGHER I
The construction industry looks headed for a major slowdown as the number of new residential building consents dives, down -29% from a year ago. It is the lowest February since 2018 and is down -9.5% from pre-pandemic levels. Rising interest rates and falling house prices make residential property development a tough zsector tro be in.
TOUGHER II
The RBNZ is proposing rules that would encourage banks to limit their exposure to lending where climate risks are elevated.
TOUGHER III
Business confidence is unchanged in February from January. It remains slightly positive for managers when they assess their own prospects, but remains very negative when they assess the prospects for the broader economy. The vast majority of businesses (86%) expect further cost increases over the year ahead. And although they report slightly lower inflation, it is still very high and the shift lower is small. Pressures are expected to be intense in a high-cost, low-growth environment.
TOOL FAILURE
Please note that our deposit calculator has stopped working. :( We hope to have the problem resolved sorted within a day. Sorry.
BIG FUNDING SUCCESS I
Christchurch City Holding's bond offer was a success, raising the full $150 mln in a 5 year, unsecured, unsubordinated, fixed rate bond placement. They will be paying 5.043% pa. (or $40.7 mln in interest over the life of the bond). Meanwhile Contact Energy's $300 mln 6 year 'green' bond will pay 5.62% it was announced today (or $101.2 mln in interest over the term).
BIG FUNDING SUCCESS II
Today's Government bond tender was very well supported. 110 bids worth $1.056 bln were made for the three tranches totalling $400 mln. The May 2028 went for 4.25% yield, down from 4.35% two weeks ago. The April 2033 tranche went for 4.20% and down from 4.35% two weeks ago. The May 2051 $50 mln tranche got 27 bids but only three won anything. It went for a yield of 4.42% and lower than the 4.60% two weeks ago.
JOB VACANCIES SLIP
Job vacancies in Australia are slipping although are still at a relatively high level. However, this is the first quarterly decline since August 2021, so perhaps this data is telling us something.
SWAP RATES RISE
Wholesale swap rates have probably risen again today and maybe by about +10 bps. However, the real action in swap rates comes near the close. Our chart will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is up another +3 bps at 5.22% and +47 bps above the current OCR. However markets are pricing in less than a +25 bps rise at the next RBNZ review on Wednesday, April 5, 2023. But both ANZ and Westpac are expecting another +25 bps hike taking the OCR to 5% and its highest since December 2008. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 3.35% and up +3 bps from yesterday. The China 10 year bond rate is little-changed at 2.87%. And the NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.23%, up another +9 bps and back to being above the earlier RBNZ fix at 4.17% and up +6 bps from yesterday. The UST 10 year yield is now at 3.58% and unchanged from this time yesterday.
EQUITIES MOSTLY RISE
The NZX50 has had a recovering day, currently up +0.9% near the end of trade. In Australia where the ASX200 is now up +1.0% in afternoon trade after a down start. Tokyo has opened its Thursday trade down -0.6%. Hong Kong is very little-changed in very early trade. Shanghai has opened up +0.3%. Earlier, Wall Street closed its Wednesday session with the S&P500 up +1.4% after holding high all day.
GOLD LOWER
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$9 from this time yesterday, now at US$1959/oz.
NZD SOFTER
The Kiwi dollar has fallen -½c today, now at 62.1 USc. Against the Aussie we are soft too at 93.1 AUc. And against the euro we are down at 57.3 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is now at 70.1 and down -40 bps.
BITCOIN HIGHER AGAIN
The bitcoin price has risen from this time yesterday, now at US$28,325 and up +3.3% in a day. Volatility has been moderate today at +/-2.4%.
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83 Comments
Wolfie has good reason to be cocky.
I was one of those who were skeptical of Wolfie when he was bullish at $11k. Also, his comments have been consistent with him offloading at $42k . . . following the basic rule of a gambler - bank your winnings when ahead.
However, I'm still not convinced that Bitcoin is a rational investment . . . maybe its that I'm conservative and I find one is more successful in investing if one is relying on sound reasoning rather than blind faith. I'm not disappointed at missing out on the riches from Bitcoin; at $60K I was being assured a couple of years ago by another poster who was a Bitcoin fanatic that it was "going to $100k by Christmas".
Gee HouseMouse, your comment clearly illustrates that you really are desperate to have your ego massaged.
As to your predictions you have an extensive list of poor calls - OCR not to go over 2%, inflation done by end of 2022 are just two.
You are the TA of interest.co.
You are a great cherry picker - and even then having called you out over credibility I take your claims with a grain of salt.
I was one of those who were skeptical of Wolfie when he was bullish at $11k. Also, his comments have been consistent with him offloading at $42k . . .
Well I bought ol' ratty at <USD5K and as high as USD52.9K. And never sold a Sat.
So who's the bad boy? To me it doesn't matter.
But Arbitrum / Defi is a different game to stacking Sats. And Wolfie is aware of that and aware that my tongue is firmly in cheek.
It is all - repeat all - parasitic one someone else doing something real.
The problem is that there are now more of you lot doing nothing, compared to those doing something.
The inevitable result is your are all - in whatever form - holding too much proxy.
Much, much, much too much proxy.
I find it hilarious that you diss each other, as the ship sink beneath your feet.
Taking the liberty to supplement the last line there. “The boy stood on the burning deck, his lips were all a quiver, he gave a cough, a leg fell off, and floated down the river.” Old Spike, in his wonderfully strange way, knew a thing or two about life and those that play games with it.
As school parents, my better half and I, with two slightly stoned female accomplices, did a skit from Badjelly the Witch.
I was the tree what had been a policeman (yes, my acting was wooden...)
Well, we laughed a lot - but the audience seemed..... puzzled.
Spike was amazing; the best: "He stood to one side; he wasn't numerically equipped to stand to more".
The problem is that there are now more of you lot doing nothing, compared to those doing something.
Imagine thinking you could get rich just by holding onto a new kind of money.
Some people will do really well, but history shows most people losing in such a scenario. 10 years ago it was people thinking they'd get rich when the Iraqi dinar re-decimalised.
But no, this is a new kind of money. A better kind of money. But you don't spend it, you put it on a USB key and hide it in a safe place, other people later on will spend it instead. Then, ye shall be rich, rich beyond your wildest dreams!
It is all - repeat all - parasitic one someone else doing something real.
Like building an Ark and gathering animals? I appreciate what you say Power but technology isn't necessarily bad, even if it is applied to money. And yes, I think living like the Amish people is admirable.
I think it's more the assumption of the value ones time is generating.
Put it this way:
- An egg is a dollar. I know roughly what goes into making just one egg.
- Minimum wage is apparently good enough to buy roughly 23 of those in one hour. With some extra eggs in case you're sick, and a few more if you want a break or have your own chicks, etc.
So try producing 160 eggs a day. PDKs assumption is many digital jobs produce something of far less actual value, yet cost much more.
They are OK as long as they trade digital for digital, or keystroke them into existence. Even something as intangible as a massage can be traced to the tangible breakfast of the masseur.
The problem comes when they want to cash in for something real: eggs, a car, a house.... Then the real supply is the choker.
And eggs is a good analogy, given the empty shelves. Doesn't matter how much you offer, when the shelves are empty. My approach (12 chooks 2 roosters in 2 flocks) gives us real eggs.
Yeah I think there's a couple of things going on:
- software is immensely scalable, so a small few can make a lot by a huge volume of transactions at low distribution and production cost. This can buy many things in the real world.
- there's a digital "economy" that as you say holds value within itself, that may not have anywhere near the conversion rate people think, because the scarcity is only code.
Big funding success ll,
except that bond issuance has nothing to do with funding the government it only drains reserves from the banks which were put there by the governments spending in the first place.
No sensible financial institution would ever lend its own money to a government which runs consistent budget deficits and with no hope of repayment let alone making the interest payments, but of course that is not a problem for our government as it issues all of the currency that it spends itself.
Borrowing is purely an accounting structure and a monetary procedure. Mainstream economics lacks so much in commonsense and logic.
3 townhouses in the development I live in have been put on the market over the last week. Only one has been sold prior to this, last year (the development is about 3.5 years old)
I am on the Residents Association committee and the word is one person is going overseas but the other two households are suffering almost unbearable mortgage stress.
So sad, thanks to this country’s property obsession and the mammoth hype machine that people have got in to these situations.
I am sure this is the tip of the iceberg.
Houses are coming off the market, because they're not selling, because a huge amount of the RBNZs actions are about influencing sentiment, what the actual OCR changes do in the short term has minimal consequence. But their message for 6-9 months has been bad, bad and some more bad.
Even you are surprised how long this is taking. There's still some pain to come though for sure, and some areas will be more distressed than others.
I’m seeing more come on the market everyday, just a couple years ago houses around here were selling at the open home……I shit you not. One renovation down the road has now been on the market for a while, taken off then back on. Really nicely done but the govt have put shit kickers in nearby. I guess as long as there are no job losses things will be ok but I do worry for young families who have been thrown under the bus by the RB and govt.
Yeah, they would have to drop another 2/3 to entice me out of my rental. Needless to say I won't be joining the herd.
For some reason reminds me of an old guy who gave me a lift in Scotland in 1988. He had been in the British Expeditionary Force that got it's ass kicked, along with the French, in 1939. He said he found himself running along the beach towards the evac boats while Stukas made their runs. He noticed that most of the fleeing troops were clumped together running along the base of the cliffs to try and get a bit of cover, so he just ran on his own in full view along the water line. Apparently he was not worth shooting. Sometimes avoiding the herd is the way to go.
Big funding success III
Halter secures $85m in VC funding. This is huge for the company and could be massive for the country, if only we worked with them in a mass roll out. Halter is a great product and can significantly improve on farm productivity, often up to 40% for dairy farmers. Once setup, rids the need for fencing (except boundary), raceways, dogs, early morning manual herding... improves livestock management (lame/heat detection) as well as various other bonuses.
I don't work for the company or anything, but can see a huge benefit for the primary sector by switching to something like this.
I love binance listings. I have a fair amount of money in a coin called Radiant Capital (its a defi thing). Up over 1000% on my buy and today there was a binance listing and it instantly jumped 30%!
I consider myself somewhat an OG Wolfie but this is really where the good opportunities are. But if I'm going into the defi space properly, it's got to be a full-time gig. Tempting. If I were a normie, I'd be tempted to straight into defi, depending on one's ability to understand the space quickly.
Where do you guys trade through exchange wise as far as putting money in and taking out? When selling at times do you trade to a stable coin or cash out completely? I’ve only dabbled in a small bit through Coinbase and a wallet for NFTs to see how that side works.
Hey there - Easy Crypto. I buy USDT (tether) and transfer to binance, then I buy and withdraw instantly. 95% of my activity is done on a decentralized exchange - uniswap, balancer, curve etc.
When I cashed out this last year I sold all into a mix of difference stable coins, then I would sell a chunk of USDT to Easy Crypto each day.
Funny enough the bank didn't seem to mind
I have corporate trading account in Japan where I can switch from crypto into JPY and is 100% guaranteed. Because that particular exchange doesn't have USD stablecoins, I sometimes use Independent Reserve in Australia. Send XRP from Japan (or from my cold wallet) and buy USDC or PMGT (gold).
But considering I'm a long-term HODLer, most of this stuff is irrelevant to me. I can keep BTC in cold storage and sleep easy.
The Aussie media is raising the red flag on fuel prices not coming down fast enough from its recent highs.
Something doesn't add up with global crude prices down compared to last year and Singapore (and Malaysia) mixing more discounted Russian crude in their refining inputs. Same thing at play with NZ prices I suppose.
Yes I have wondered about that but refrained from saying anything as I don’t have much knowledge of fuel prices. But it seemed weird that the price at the pump didn’t come down much when the international price of oil had dropped significantly and the NZD had firmed.
The bigger players follow a complex pricing methodology to confuse regulators investigating for price gouging. This is from a mate who worked at Z as a pricing analyst for a few months and left because the work wasn’t anything close to what was sold on the JD.
The smaller players simply have to sell a few cents lower than whatever BP and Z put on offer.
Allow subscribers to put people on a squelch list, so each subscriber simply doesn't see their posts or any replies to their posts unless you un-squelch the page. And maybe add a counter next to the number of comments to tell how many have been squelched.
Add that and I'll sign up.
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