A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; winter housing slump, non-performing loans surge, Census investigation, swaps on hold, 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).

MORTGAGE/LOAN RATE CHANGES
None here today, so far. See non-rate offers here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
ICBC has raised TD rates for terms 1 to 5 months.

WINTER SLUMP
Housing market heading into its usual winter slump with high stock levels giving buyers the upper hand. Asking prices, new listings are all sinking as stock levels stay high. And of course this demographic trend isn't housing market friendly either for the long term trajectory.

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE NEXT DAIRY AUCTION
There is another dairy auction tomorrow. The futures pricing suggests SMP will be unchanged from both the last full auction and last week's Pulse event. Futures pricing suggests WMP will be come in a sharpish -5% lower from the last full auction and -6% lower than last week's Pulse event. But then again, the futures market has proven to be a somewhat unreliable predictor of GDT event pricing recently.

TEAMING UP
Private markets platform Syndex is acknowledging that recent market conditions have highlighted challenges of raising capital for private companies. They have now entered a partnership with Australia's platform for private market capital, FinClear/FCX.

APRIL SURGE
Non-performing housing loans total surged 7.7% in a month. The latest RBNZ figures show non-performing housing loans increased by +$136 million in April to over $1.9 billion and are up +72% in the past 12 months.

CENSUS DATA MISUE CLAIMS INVESTIGATED
Stats NZ has asked an independent external party to investigate allegations of misuse of census data collected for the 2023 Census. Last year Stats NZ partnered with Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency to lift low response rates from Māori in Auckland. The collection operations with non-responding and partial-responding Māori households were led by Te Pae Herenga o Tāmaki. As part of this, Whānau Ora worked with Manurewa Marae. Late last week Stats NZ received allegations relating to the inappropriate use of census data collected at Manurewa Marae.

UPDATING DIRECTORS' LEGAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
The Minister of Justice has asked the Law Commission to undertake a review of directors’ duties and liabilities. It will be led by Commissioner Geof Shirtcliffe.

OUT WITH THE OLD. IN WITH THE ???
P&O Cruises in this part of the world, famous for its rust-bucket vessels at the end of their commercial life, is to be closed at least as a brand. Its Florida-headquartered owner Carnival is to relaunch it under their own brand next season.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are likely to be little-changed today. Our chart below will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 5.62%, a level it has hovered around for more than 80+ days. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -3 bps from yesterday at 4.36%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 2.32%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -6 bps at 4.82% from this morning and the earlier RBNZ fix was at 4.72% and down -10 bps from where we left it on Friday. The UST 10yr yield is up a mere +1 bp from yesterday at 4.41%. Their 2yr is now at 4.82%, so the curve has shifted to be more at -41 bps inverted.

EQUITIES HOVER MOSTLY LITTLE-CHANGED
The NZX50 is unchanged in late Tuesday trade. The story is the same in afternoon trade for the ASX200. Tokyo has opened its Tuesday trade down -0.5^ while Hong Kong is up +0.4%. Shanghai is up +0.2% while Singapore is down -0.3%. Earlier, Wall Street closed with the S&P5000 up a very minor +0.1%.

OIL SLIPS FURTHER
The oil price is -50 USc lower from this time morning, now just on US$73.50/bbl in the US, and down a bit more at just on US$77.50/bbl for the international Brent price.

GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trade, gold has held from this time yesterday, at US$2348/oz.

NZD LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar is up +10 bps from this morning's open, now at 61.9 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 92.6 AUc. Against the euro we are unchanged at 56.7 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is still at about 70.9.

BITCOIN ON HOLD
The bitcoin price has eased slightly today, now at US$69,091 and down -0.3% from this morning's open. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been modest, at +/- 1.5%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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