A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Thursday; Kiwibank breaks through, business sentiment better than expected, mortgage growth low, swaps and NZD on hold, & 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/LOAN RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank raise all its fixed home loan rates 2 years and longer by either +10 bps or +20 bps. NBS also their fixed one and two year rates. As did SBS Bank today for fixed terms of 6 months to 2 years.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
The Cooperative Bank raised some rates by +5 bps. But the notable move today is that Kiwibank is the first main bank to offer a 6% TD for a one year term. Eleven other banks offer 6%+ rates, but most are challenger banks and the other main banks who do only offer them for 18 months or two years. More here. Sharesies Save account is dropping back to 4.60% tomorrow from their 'special' 5.00%.

'GOLDILOCKS IS IN THE BUILDING'
The August ANZ business confidence survey was impressively upbeat. Business confidence lifted another 9 points in August to -4, the highest read since mid-2021. Expected own activity also jumped 10 points, to +11. All activity indicators lifted. Inflation indicators continued to ease. More here.

A TEN YEAR LOW
The growth in the mortgage books of banks and non-banks was the lowest for a July from June since 2017, at just +$680 mln. (If the average new mortgage was $500,000, that means the net growth across all institutions was less than 1400 transaction in the month. Given there are 11 banks competing for mortgages, that is an average of only +120 per bank. That is small. The RBNZ data shows the year-on-year 'growth' of only +3.0%, the smallest rise (including during the pandemic shudder) since October 2012. (Lending to business and agriculture isn't growing fast either.)

ALL NEW HOUSEHOLD CASH IS GOING INTO TDs
Household bank accounts rose by +$1.8 bln in July from June, up +$11.4 bln in a year. These are increases at the upper end of the range in recent months. All these increases are going into term deposits, also up +$1.8 bln in July from June.

STILL VERY STRONG DEMAND
There was no shortage of demand for the latest NZ Government Bond tenders - even after some very big and successful bank bond raisings (BNZ's $1 bln was one in the past week). Treasury offered $500 mln and got 148 bids worth $1.3 bln over three durations. Yields rose to 5% or close to it althought the change from the equivalent bond offerings a month ago were only about +20 bps.

ANOTHER BANK BOND
SBS Bank has raised $175 mln by a 5½ year bond issue. They are paying 6.15% pa for these funds. (Remember, SBS Bank has a successful FinanceNow finance company division, so higher-priced money can be put to work there if the bank division can't find a profitable opportunity.)

MORE POLICY COMPARISONS
For readers following our popular election policy comparisons, our resource has been updated with detail for three National Party policy releases: for Tax, Senior Citizens, and Rental Issues.

STAYING VERY HIGH?
Our grocery price monitoring this week shows rises above +9% year-on-year. That is down from +25% year-on-year rises in March, but this latest review is worrying because it is an early (tentative) suggestion that the track down might be over for a while. In early August it was 'only' up +7.5%.

UNINSPIRING
In China, their official August PMI data is out. Their factory activity gauge improved marginally in August, but was still below the 50-point mark that separates a contraction from an expansion amid a global economic slowdown and sluggish domestic demand. Their service secor expansion cooled again and is barely at the 50 benchmark now (51.0). New export orders are weakening although new orders generally are at a steady state (50). The private Caixin equivalent monitoring is not out until tomorrow (factory) and Tuesday (services). Recently that has been marginally more optimistic than the official data.

SWAPS HOLD
Wholesale swap rates were probably little-changed today, but the real reaction will come at the close. Our chart will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp at 5.65%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down another -2 bps at 4.05%. The China 10 year bond rate is little-changed at 2.60%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -2 bps to 4.97%, but still above the earlier RBNZ fixing of 4.91%, and down -4 bps. The UST 10 year yield is also down -3 bps from yesterday, now at 4.11%.

EQUITIES LITTLE-CHANGED MOSTLY
The NZX50 is down -0.2% near today's close, again. The ASX200 is down -0.1% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened up +0.6%. Hong Kong is unchanged in its opening trades. But Shanghai is down -0.5%, no doubt hurt by the Country Garden trainwreck. Wall Street ended its Wednesday session up another, but more modest, +0.4%.

GOLD IN ANOTHER MOVE UP
In early Asian trade, gold is at US$1946/oz and up another +US$10 for the day. Earlier it closed at US$1942/oz in New York, and earlier still at US$1948/oz in London.

NZD ON HOLD
The Kiwi dollar has moved up slightly against the greenback, now at 59.7 USc. Against the Aussie we have basically held at 91.9 AUc. Against the euro we are marginally softer at 54.6 euro cents. The TWI-5 is unchanged at 68.6.

BITCOIN HOLDS HIGHER
The bitcoin price has slipped from yesterday. It is now at US$27,210 but down just -0.8% in the past 24 hours. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been low +/- 0.8%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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