A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; Barfoots weak in January, building consents weak, car sales soft, consumer confidence low, retail weak, swaps stable, NZD firm, & 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). It's a skinny edition today.

MORTGAGE/LOAN RATE CHANGES
No so far today.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Treasury trimmed its 1, 2, and 4 year Kiwi Bond rates by -25 bps today.

MORE LISTINGS, LOWER PRICES
Barfoot & Thompson started the year with rising stock levels and falling prices, spelling good news for buyers. Their average price was down nearly $100,000 in January as listing jumped.

HOUSE BUILDING CONSENTS SHARPLY LOWER
The December data closed 2023 showing the number of new homes consented dropped by -25% from the prior year. There's a looming crunch coming for the residential construction industry as new dwelling consents continued to tumble at the end of last year. And analysts now also expect a fall in construction activity over 2024.

NON-RES CONSENTS WEAK
Meanwhile outside the housing sector Infometrics noted that non-residential consents totaled $647 mln in December, down 24% from a year ago. After adjusting for seasonal patterns and building cost inflation, the monthly consent total was the weakest since January 2023 and continues a definite trend of weakening in the second half of last year, they said.

CAR SALES SOFT, COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SALES JUMP
There were 8116 new cars sold in January, plus another 8915 used imports. That means the new car sales level was more than -12% lower than year ago levels, but the used import level was +24% higher. And it looks like the level of EV and hybrid sales were unusually low last month. In contrast, there seems to have been a big surge in new commercial vehicle sales, topping 4300 and the second highest January ever.

SENTIMENT STILL LOW
Consumer sentiment remained low in January even if it did firm slightly from December. However, the same ANZ-Roy Morgan survey showed that inflation expectations rose to start the year, going up from 3.9% to 4.3%. The RBNZ won't like to see that. A net 19% think it’s a bad time to buy a major household item, up 6 percentage points. Retailers won't be happy with that metric either.

JANUARY RETAIL WEAK
Data released by Worldline today from its payments network shows consumer spending through Core Retail merchants (excluding Hospitality) in was $3.07 bln in January, up +3.9% on January 2023. Meanwhile, consumer spending through Hospitality merchants only reached $1.02 bln in the month, which is down -1.4% on January 2023. Neither metric shows enthusiastic consumers.

UDC BUYS NZ BOOK OFF BOQ
UDC Finance said it has a deal with Bank of Queensland to purchase the New Zealand loan book and other New Zealand assets originated by BOQ Finance and BOQ Equipment Finance. Regulatory approval for this transaction has been received from the Overseas Investment Office.

FALLING WELL SHORT
In Australia, there were only 51,570 home loans issued in 2023 for the construction or purchase of a new home, less than half the number of loans issued just two years earlier in 2021 and finishing 2023 on a weak note. The pipeline of new housing supply approaching completion there is now shrinking rapidly and they are very unlikely to meet the Federal Government's target 1.2 million new homes built in the next five years.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates will probably be little-changed again today. However, the key reaction will come at the close. Our chart below records the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp at 5.67%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down another -4 bps at 3.98% although has been lower in between. The China 10 year bond rate is little-changed at 2.45%. And the NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up a minor +1 bp at 4.62%, while the earlier RBNZ fixing was at 4.66% and unchanged from yesterday. The UST 10 year yield is now at 3.88% and down another -7 bps from this time yesterday. The UST 2yr is at 4.21% and so that key inversion is holding ar -33 bps.

EQUITY WINNERS & LOSERS
The NZX50 is up +0.4% in late trade today heading for a weekly rise of +0.7%. The ASX200 is up +1.1% in early afternoon trade, and heading for a weekly rise of +1.6%. Tokyo has opened up +0.9% in early trade and heading for +1.5% for the week. Hong Kong has opened up +1.8% at its open and unless that changes it will complete its week down -1.2%. Shanghai is up +0.2% in their opening trade today but the damage was done earlier in the week and that look headed for a -4.6% weekly retreat. Singapore is up +1.2% at its open. The S&P500 closed on Wall Street in Thursday trade up +1.3% but in the first four days of the week that is only a +0.3% rise.

OIL EASES FURTHER
Oil prices are down another -US$1.50 from yesterday at just under US$74.50/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is now just under US$79.50/bbl. That is seriously cheap - it first hit this level in June 2006, and since then New Zealand has had a +54% change in purchasing power.

GOLD FIRMS FURTHER
In early Asian trade, gold is now at US$2053 and up another +US$13 from this time yesterday.

NZD FIRMER AGAIN
The Kiwi dollar is now just on 61.5 USc and up +¼c from yesterday at this time. Against the Aussie we are slightly firmer again at 93.4 AUc. Against the euro we are slightly softer at 56.6 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is now at just over 70.7 today and up a bit less than +20 bps.

BITCOIN RETREATS
The bitcoin price rose +3.0% today to US$43,269. There's been modest volatility over the past 24 hours of just over +/- 1.8%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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