A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Thursday; insurance incentives, ASB raises TD rates, more Budget borrowing, PPI rises slow fast, Xero cash flows in, swaps up, NZD firm, & more

Its valuation is based on  the potential of unlimited users/tenants, its scalability so to speak. By comparison a house can only house a fixed number of humans based on its capacity.

All that money moving home from international bond markets has to park somewhere...... that should have been an obvious trade really

Who buys the index at the very nub of the lows. Whats more, from memory it was a V shape comeback so at its low for a very short time. 

But even without leverage auckland real estate has probably quadrupled since 2009 or thereabouts.

Still good to hear that the index (and economy) is in good shape. Though below ATH of 39000

Nick Leeson would be a tad miffed!

That's the trade he anticipated at 16,000, but was 30 years too early.

A bit like Bernie, if he could have held on, he'd be a hero today. It makes you wonder "How many did?" (I know Olympus Corporation gave it a go, but even a couple of decades of holding-on eventually caught them out)

I thought people were dying from the vaccine?  

The hype went from being an election-winning tactic to an election-losing one.

The problem with absolutes is that is it usually wrong. As a health care professional COVID IS BEING TALKED ABOUT ALL THE TIME. It is true that it is talked about less in the general population, as with all pandemics, but it is not gone, it is going to kill more people than the flu this winter, it continues to affect all aspects of society in terms of sickness and, in economic terms, loss of productive days etc. You may not be talking about it, which is fine, but don't speak for all of us. It's insulting to me and my colleagues, who are trying to do our best to treat individuals with COVID. 

How does a minor issue of a Russian invasion setting off unpredictable inflation feature in that forecast.... it didn't. Now the issue is unpredictable monsoon storms affecting vege prices. The rub is that the RB hopes to solve these by increasing interest rates on the young fhb and indebted property investors.

Hopefully the africans can pull off a coup and get both Russia and Ukraine to agree to a withdrawal though not holding my breath.

The Comb is such a failed heavy duty economist that he now lives on the stream of $$$ from the vested property interests, he has been wrong since Nov 21, ignore him , his drivel is neither independant or relevant..., Bloomberg never quote him

Rorts, rorts, rorts, rorts

Perhaps NZ should do the retirement visa. Like Thailand. 

Apparently every working age immigrant can bring in up to 6 parents. As was asked at the time it came in "How does that work?" Now we know.

Every fruit picker brings a family.. wife, parent, child. Didnt you know - and they all get the use of our benefits and infrastructure (maybe not quite that bad but still its not exactly a good deal)

My bet is the average immigrant these days costs NZ about $3m over their lifetime (conservatively) . But they make about $30k a year in the first 3 years for their farmer boss..

Be cheaper to just give some of our taxes to the farmers to do nothing (thats what they do in europe) .. better still pay them to plant some trees instead of apples or grapes or whatever.

You may have misread the stat. 

"Our population almost touched 5.2 mln as at March 31, 2023, rising +1.6% in the year. That is a gain of +84,000 in a year (the equivalent of a New Plymouth). +25,600 of those were 65 or older. Since March, our population probably rising faster as net migration ramps up. A record high 16.6% of our population at March 31 2023 was 65 years and older. "

That simply means there are 26k more older people in the country, because people tend to get older. 

In terms of the migration arrivals data, it looks like 15k / 324k arrivals were 65+, or 4%. Those younger ones will bring down the average age of the country.  

Overall, Xero will cut its headcount by 700 or 800 as it “balances growth and profitability”.

No additional tenant supplement. No or reducing tax rinse. Anti slum requirements. No lazy eviction. No capital growth.

More good tenant kiwis leaving. More housing supply arriving. More maintenance legislated. More budget for social housing. Inbound DTI legislation, meaning more real equity required.

Be quick...to bail out.

The landlord subsidy and non-means tested super need to be on the bonfire. Same as retiring at 65, move it up to 70 or go on the sickness bene

I dont mind if AS is removed. But all HNZ / KO tenants go on market rents and all benefits removed except for the most needy.

All kiwis treated as equals instead of the taxpayer being a cash cow 

We will see how strong our economy is and we will see the true attitudes of those with their hands out.

The oldies won't stray. The others are PC gone mad.

Prescriptions are free aren’t they? I can’t think of a chemist near us that charges. Seems like they are throwing money away. 

$618 million for 135,000 prescriptions sounds very expensive to me

And paying for an extra year of preschool costs is ok but maybe if you gave those people a tax break they would actually see something else as a higher priority

The optics are bad on this for National, but then again they are useless campaigners it seems. At least Seymour had the gumption to link the fact that you'll probably wind up paying more in extra inflation-related costs than you'll save in free prescriptions. 

What I can't figure out is who is actually paying $5 per prescription these days? Everywhere you look there's a Chemist Warehouse, Bargain Chemist or even some local pharmacies doing it for free now. 

As others have pointed out, it also seems very expensive for the relative impact. I'd argue a better spend of the money would be more targeted support for GP visits for lower income earners to try and keep people from going to the ER as they can't afford the doctor. 

Now the taxpayer gets to foot the bill for something that private businesses were doing as a loss leader ... genius stuff. But ultimately makes for good headlines and National should have kept quiet on this.

That's my thinking. Fuel subsidies coming of soon. Good reason to up prices again. So proud of this bunch of clowns. 

I turned it on the other day, first time I realised I could still get standard tv…….Freeview is digital now. It’s really shit. You are missing nothing.

Yes if national changed their stance on housing, I'd vote for them this election.

But as it stands, won't touch them. 

Yes, the politicians only pander to their core constituents, since neither team red or team blue truly do things in the interests of the nation and its future, there might be merit in voting out of pure self interest. If you can’t beat them, join them.

I am not writing off the option of voting blue, especially if they give me tax cuts and get tougher on crime.

Not everyone gets to spend billions of other people's money.

Financial markets knows this is going higher for longer and is also anticipating that the only why Labour can buy this is to promise things funded by more borrowing..... we are about to hit a wall, you will still smell the burning wreckage on Oct 13th 2023   I actually think cash kiwi saver could out perform other asset allocations. Your millage may vary..