A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; Rabo tweaks some TD rate higher, immigrants with work visas surge, glimmers in holiday retail, swaps hold sharply lower, NZD slips, & 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
No changes to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Rabobank raised its six and nine month offer rates to 6.15% and 6.20% respectively. Their six month rate is now the highest from any bank which the 6.20% rate matches the bank of China offer.

WHOLESALE SLUMP
The big story of the day (or the week, even the month) is the sharp overnight fall in swap rates which are now at nine month lows after the weak Q3 GDP result. The down trend has been reinforced by US Federal Reserve signals it could cut interest rates soon.

SPENDING PLANS STASHED
There were only 218 new tractors registered in November, just four nor than in the depths of the pandemic and almost the lowest number in 20 years. There are now 33,400 tractors registered, a level that is also sinking and is back to levels first seen in late 2018. The sag is a direct indication of how much farmers have closed down their spending habits.

FOUR NEW CITIES, SUDDENLY
Seventeen thousand people arrived in the country on work visas in November, taking the total who arrived to more than 200,000 people arriving on work in the full November year. As a point of reference, that is 5% more than the equivalent of the population of Timaru + Queenstown/Wanaka + Whanganui + Gisborne combined.

BUYERS MARKET
They are arriving to a buyers market for housing. House buyers are likely to have plenty to choose from when they come back from their Xmas break, according to the data we have collated and compared from realestate.co.nz and REINZ.

MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Payments processor Worldline (ex-Paymark) says consumer spending increased in the second full week of December bringing some much-needed cheer to merchants within both the Core Retail and Hospitality sectors, as month-to-date spending jumped ahead of last year. But they are not reporting inflation-beating gains, with the year-on-year rise up just +2.4%. But at this stage retail merchants will take what they can.

MOVING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION
The BNZ-Business NZ PMI for November isn't great reading, even if it did "improve" (ie less negative) this month. It remained very weak as a level, at 47.6. That’s the ninth month in a row the PMI has been below the breakeven mark of 50. New orders were hardly much more encouraging, as they came in at 47.7, from 44.5 in October.

RATING UPGRADE
S&P Global Ratings has upgraded insurer IAG strength rating from AA- to AA and its issuer rating from A to A+. These upgrades are about "stronger capital buffers following revised criteria" rather than solely IAG factors alone.

MISSING OUT?
The ACCC, Australia's competition regulator, said their government should consider making it much easier to switch banks there as customers miss out on benefits. It has has called for banks to notify customers of changes to bonus savings rates to help them switch, in its final report of its retail deposits inquiry.

CHINA DATA MIXED
China released a wide set of national data today. We have picked out two items of interest; in this official data none of their 70 largest cities reported any house price growth based on housing resales. Overall their housing index was said to fall -0.2%, but sales of new units are low and now quite problematic. Sales of used units are showing much larger declines that the index they released, both month-on-month and year-on-year. Going the other way, they reported that electricity production was up +8.4% in November from the same month in 2022. That supports the better than expected industrial production data they also reported, up +6.6%.

SWAPS HOLD AT LOWER LEVELS
Wholesale swap rates are little-changed today on global trends after yesterday's big drop. However, the key reaction will come at the close. Our chart below records the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down a mere -1 bp at 5.62% and now +12 bps above the OCR. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up +3 bps at 4.15%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 2.67%. And the NZ Government 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 4.67%, while the earlier RBNZ fixing was at 4.59% which was down another -11 bps today. The UST 10 year yield is now at 3.96% and down -2 bps from yesterday. The UST 2yr is now at 4.43% so that key curve inversion is now back at -47 bps.

EQUITIES MOSTLY HIGHER
The NZX50 is down -0.4% near the end of today's session and heading for a minor +0.1% weekly gain. The ASX200 is up a strong +1.1% in afternoon trade today and heading for a weekly rise of +3.7%. Tokyo is up +1.3% in early trade today and if that holds it will be up +1.4% for the week. Hong Kong is up a full +2.0% in opening trade today and will end its week up +3.6% if that holds. Shanghai is little-changed at its open and heading for a very minor weekly rise. (+0.2%). Singapore is -0.3% lower at its open. On Wall Street, the S&P500 ended its Thursday up +0.3% and that is up +2.5% so far this week.

OIL UP AGAIN
The crude oil price is up +US$2 from this time yesterday, now just on US$72/bbl in the US, and the Brent benchmark is now just under US$77/bbl.

GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trade, gold is now at US$2033/oz and up +US$1/oz from where we were this time yesterday, and holding yesterday's big jump. Earlier in New York it also closed at US$2033/oz, and earlier still in London at US$2046/oz.

NZD SLIPS
The Kiwi dollar is now at 62 USc and down a mere -10 bps from this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are down -¼c at 92.4 AUc. Against the euro we are down -½c at 56.5 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is down to 69.9.

BITCOIN RISES AGAIN
The bitcoin price has moved up to US$43,013 and a smaller rise of +0.6% from where we were this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at just under +/- 2%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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