A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; dwelling values fall faster, retail spending up, small fine & big costs, fast tax rises, swaps up, NZD up, & 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
Nelson Building Society (NBS) raised both its floating and fixed home loan rates.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Westpac raised two key savings rates with their six month rate rising to 5.40% and their eight month rate rising to 5.50%. We know others will be raising rates tomorrow too. Squirrel has raised is P2P rates by +25 bps and +50 bps for home loan and commercial loan-based products, and by +80 bps for personal loan based offers.

DOWN -$1000 PER WEEK
According to the latest QV data, the average New Zealand dwelling value is down $161,264 since it peaked at the start of last year.

STILL OUT SPENDING
Stats NZ figures show that total card spending rose +1% after seasonal adjustment in April, following a big +3.1% rise in March

A BILLION DOLLAR RECOVERY COST
Boston Consulting Group thinks the damage in Hawke's Bay could be worse and longer-lasting than Treasury has forecast.

TRANSPOWER FINED $150,000
The August 2021 power outage leads to a "big" penalty imposed on State-owned Transpower after its actions were found remiss.

$420 MLN RETENTION PAY RISE
Defence Minister Andrew Little details pay rises for defence force personnel as greater demands are made on their resources, and Australia's higher pay (and new citizenship enticement) weigh.

UNDER BUDGET EVEN THOUGH AT RECORD HIGHS
Crown revenue falls below forecasts as the economy slows and ETS revenue drops. The Minister of Finance says tough decisions were made for Budget 2023 as Government revenue falls below expectations. However, taxes on employee incomes rose to a record-high $5.4 mln in the month of March, up +9.8% for the full year to March from the same prior twelve months. On the same 12 month basis GST is up +6.9% although in March from February it was up +10.5% on an annualised basis. Taxes on companies are running at $20 bln pa, 50% higher than their pre-pandemic levels and double since 2016.

PROPER COROMANDEL FIX
The Government has committed to bridging the most difficult part of the rebuild of State Highway 25A. That will be a 'permanent solution' but it won't be completed until early 2024 even with the early start underway. Life will be tough for those on the east coast of the Coromandel.

ANZ NZ DIVIDEND DOWN A LITTLE
ANZ NZ paid a $870 million ordinary dividend for the six months to March, according to the bank's new disclosure statement, down from $880 million in the March-half the previous year.

MILK SHAKE(UP)
A2 Milk (ATM) is shaking up its senior management, both in its US operation, and at jointly-owned Mataura Valley Milk facility.

HUMM BOSS JOINING ASB
ASB has appointed Rebecca James as its new Executive General Manager of Business Banking. James is currently CEO of Humm Group, and has previously worked in Chief People and Marketing Officer roles with Prospa and ME Bank, and as Client Services Director at Lavender. Subject to non-objection from the Reserve Bank, James will join ASB on August 14. Ben Speedy is currently ASB's Acting Executive General Manager of Business Banking following the departure of Nigel Annett.

CLAMPING DOWN ON BNPL KITING
Centrix and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) providers, have launched PayWatch, tracking BNPL for signs they are in financial difficulty. The platform shares overdue account data daily and flags when a consumer is behind on repayments in order to inform whether they can open an account with another BNPL. This near real-time system captures BNPL repayment performance on a daily basis, giving BNPL providers an accurate view of someone’s indebtedness status more frequently.

LOWER RETAIL SALES VOLUMES AGAIN
In Australia, lower March retail sales means that retail sales volumes fell -0.6% in the March quarter 2023, according to official data released today. The fall in the March quarter follows a -0.3% fall in the December 2022 quarter. Nominal sales increases are less than retail inflation.

DINNER & A DANCE
The Australian Budget is released at 9:30pm NZT tonight. The official documents will be posted here.

'YOU TAKE OUR GOODS, BUT WE WON'T TAKE YOURS'
China's exports rose strongly for a second straight month (up +8.5%) confirming international demand remains healthy. Taiwan reported similar growth. But China's imports shrank (-7.9%) which enabled them to post a larger trade surplus.

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SWAP RATES UP
Wholesale swap rates are probably up today, especially for 2 years and longer. 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 again unchanged at 5.62% and 37 bps above the OCR. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 3.47% and up +6 bps from this time yesterday. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 2.76%. And the NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.23% which is up +3 bps from yesterday, but still above the earlier RBNZ fix at 4.20% which up +6 bps from yesterday. See this local yield curve review. The UST 10 year yield is now at 3.50% and up +7 bps from this time yesterday.

EQUITIES MIXED AGAIN
In New York, Wall Street ended basically unchanged on the S&P500 in its Monday trade. Tokyo has opened up +0.8%. Hong Kong which has a strong day yesterday is down -0.4% today in early trade. Shanghai has opened up +0.4%. The ASX200 is down -0.2% in afternoon trade. The NZX50, which ended yesterday with a very late burst higher, is down -0.6% in late trade today.

GOLD FIRM
In early Asian trade, gold is little-changed at US$2024/oz and up +US$4 from where we were this time yesterday. That is above the New York close of US$2021/oz and the earlier London close of US$2002/oz.

NZD RISES
The Kiwi dollar is up from this time yesterday at 63.3 USc. Against the Aussie we are firm at 93.4 AUc. And against the euro we are up +½c at 57.6 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is up at 71.1.

BITCOIN DIPS LOWER
The bitcoin price has fallen again today, now at US$27,627 and down another -2.2% from where we opened this morning. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at +/- 1.9%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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