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.
Daily exchange rates
Select chart tabs
Daily swap rates
Select chart tabs
This soil moisture chart is animated here.
Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».
50 Comments
Three things:
1) I'd switch to ETH pretty quickly.
2) An idea is to sell your BTC (maybe after 31 March) and buy the ETF because it will be effectively tax free gains from there aside from the FIF tax
3) All those fund advisers who poo poo crypto are suddenly going to love it once they can earn a commission.
Housing vendors with more realistic price expectations are making it easier to close the gap between asking and selling prices
Interesting that since January, asking prices have reduced, yet sale prices have increased according to the article linked.
Spruiking by promoters behind upcoming ETFs is reportedly behind the surge.
The "spruiker" is Blackrock. Their ETF is now listed with the Nasdaq, even though they're not trading and have not received approval from the SEC. Liz 'Pocahontas' Warren will be outraged and SEC Chair Gary Gensler's reputation is in tatters (even his own senior people are expressing dissatisfaction with his performance and political stance). I have my own perverse sense of satisfaction seeing Pocahontas and Gensler getting put in their place.
The corruption from the ruling elite and MSM re the recent attack on the associations with ratty and Hamas is also appalling behavior. Thankfully this has been exposed and WSJ has even uncovered the lies emanating from the ruling elite.
I only saw the Blackrock ETF listed but you're probably right. TBH, you would think there are rules that they shouldn't list anything until the SEC green light. But as it was explained, this is possibly smoke signaling that the SEC will give the rubber stamp. If not, there is a case for market manipulation and civil case against Nasdaq.
Follow up: BlackRock’s spot ETF is the only of its kind listed on the DTCC website (ticket: IBTC). https://www.dtcc.com/
Why do you use the Trump smear for the woman
Because she deserves it. Please note that the Cherokee nation protested strongly against Warren for appropriating Native American heritage and culture (which was used for her own political and financial gain). Warren herself apologized to the Cherokee Nation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/01/sen-elizabeth-warren…
This is an interesting topic, I think the evidence is relatively conclusive she used her ancestory for personal advancement. This includes being counted as a North American Indian while Law Professor at Harvard. She had absolutely no insight or connection to her heritage (whakapapa). She identified as a minority through much of her educational career.
On balance, I'd say she exploited it but I'm happy to be rebutted.
This is an interesting topic, I think the evidence is relatively conclusive she used her ancestory for personal advancement.
From the "white man" POV, she could claim this heritage based on the DNA. From the Cherokee POV, that's not enough.
I side with the Cherokee Nation. Not Harvard.
The Financial Times reported “105 senators from both main US political parties” signed the Elizabeth Warren letter to Biden re crypto/Hamas.
Only problem. There are only 100 senators in the whole Senate.
The FT reached out for a quote to give readers a balanced take on this issue. They highlighted crypto’s biggest hater, John Reed Stark—an ex-SEC official who’s built his entire online persona around blasting the industry.
FT then broached the subject of Hamas and Bitcoin:
-- No discussion of how this program backfired on Hamas
-- No discussion of how it exposed key donors to Western surveillance
-- No discussion of how it was so disastrous, Hamas had to shut it down earlier this year
The interests of legacy media are so intertwined with the mainstream financial institutions they cover, that they can seldom be trusted to report on Bitcoin/crypto objectively.
It doesn't matter if you lose your wallet, so long as you don't also lose your recovery seed (so you can restore it to a new wallet). No bitcoin is stored in a wallet. The wallet only contains your private key, which in simple terms unlocks access to your bitcoin on the distributed ledger (bitcoin blockchain).
https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/parliament-in-election-yea…
Given it's tight around what combination of parties will be needed, it won't be before the official results come out on Nov 3.
Billionaires pay no tax because they usually take no salary but instead take shares as payment. Then they stake those shares with someone like JP Morgan or Goldmans in return for a mega million dollar loan, which they can then spend. As they have not sold the shares they incur no tax obligations on them either. Only problem is when the company crashes, the shares are worthless, and they all have to repay their loans - see Adam Neuman at WeWork who borrowed $500M from JPM.
A major national construction company in Aussie has collapsed. The NPM Group had 10 companies under its banner across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/100-jobs-lost…
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.