A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; 6.7% for a one year TD, vendors lower their sights, restoring interest deductibility to raise real estate demand, swaps unchanged, NZD holds, & 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
SBS Bank raised its reverse equity mortgage rate by +20 bps to 9.95%. Update: ANZ raised all its fixed rates. More here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank raised its one year term deposit rate to 6.70%, a special rate until November 7, 2023. More here. Westpac has raised TD rates too today (and lowered one).

SELLERS CONCEDE
Housing vendors with more realistic price expectations are making it easier to close the gap between asking and selling prices, according REINZ and realestate.co.nz data.

DROUGHT ENDING?
The country's bankers are telling the Reserve Bank that 'a more significant increase' in investor demand for residential mortgages may occur in the next six months if interest deductibility on rental properties is reintroduced.

WESTPAC NZ CONSUMER BANKING HEAD LEAVING
Westpac NZ says Michael Norfolk, its General Manager of Consumer Banking and Wealth, will leave on November 24. Helen Ryder, the bank's Head of Business, will take over in an acting capacity from November 13, subject to non-objection from the Reserve Bank.

COMPANIES STAND BY EMPLOYEES DESPITE CONTRACTION
In Australia, the globally-benchmarked Markit/SPGlobal factory PMI weakened to a deeper contraction. There were further falls in both output and new orders as demand conditions deteriorated. Moreover, in both cases the falls were the most pronounced in almost three-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, the arguably more important services PMI there sank sharply in October from September to quite a market contraction. Despite overall confidence dropping to the weakest in three-and-a-half years, companies are still holding on to their workforce. Unless things pick up, it is doubtful this can last long.

MEDIA TAKING THE WRONG EMPHASIS
In an Australian Senate parliamentary review, Greg Yanco, ASIC’s executive director of markets, said their audit inspection reports were no longer being published because media reporting of earlier reports had been too focused on the audit quality results of the big four. We are not making this up. Apparently ASIC is developing "new integrated reports" - which presumably will show the big four audit firms in a much better light.

THE VERY RICH PAY VIRTUALLY NOTHING IN TAX
A new report is noting that billionaires pay as little as 0% to 5% in income taxes, and that a global agreement for a minimum 15% income tax could raise as much as US$250 bln annually. Involved would be just 2700 global billionaires.

SWAPS HOLD
Wholesale swap rates have probably held little-changed today (judging by the minimal benchmark bond yield changes). But the real reaction will come at the close. Our chart will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is lower at 5.65% and now only +15 bps above the OCR. The Australian 10 year bond yield is unchanged from this morning to 4.71%. The China 10 year bond rate is still at 2.75%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -4 bps at 5.57% from this morning, but still above the earlier RBNZ fixing of 5.51% which was down -8 bps from Friday. The UST 10 year yield is up +3 bps from this morning at 4.87% after the sharpish weekend retreat (supposedly based on an Ackerman tweet).

EQUITIES MIXED
The NZX50 is down -0.4% in late trade today after being closed yesterday. The ASX200 is up +0.2% in afternoon trade, and after falling -0.9% yesterday. Tokyo has opened down -0.5% in its Tuesday opening trades. Singapore is up +0.5%. Hong Kong has opened down -0.5%. Shanghai has opened up +0.2%. Wall Street closed down -0.2% on the S&P500 in its Monday trade earlier after spending most of the session with a modest gain.

GOLD MARGINALLY FIRMER
In early Asian trade, gold is now at US$1977/oz and up +US$5 from this morning. Earlier in New York it closed at US$1972/oz, and earlier still in London it closed at US$1973/oz.

NZD HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar has inched up from this morning's open and now at 58.6 USc. But against the Aussie we are still at 92.3 AUc. Against the euro we are little-changed at 54.9 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is still at 68.4.

BITCOIN SHOOTS UP
The bitcoin price is sharply higher today, now up at US$33,715 and up a massive +7.8% from where we opened this morning. And volatility over the past 24 hours has been extreme at just over +/- 7.4%. Spruiking by promoters behind upcoming ETFs is reportedly behind the surge.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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