A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Monday; TSB cuts, Kiwibank trims, Fonterra looks ahead, Synlait tries to shake off its past, TD balances rise, business sentiment rises, swaps stable, NZD rises, & more

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).

MORTGAGE/LOAN RATE CHANGES
TSB has cut its fixed home loan rates across the board. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank cut two short TD rates. Heretaunga Building Society also cut two rates. General Finance cut all its rates. All updated rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

AN OPTIMISM SURPRISE
The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey shows not only that optimism about the future continues to grow, but also the first signs of improvement in current activity. ANZ themselves say the economy’s response to lower interest rates 'could be more vigorous than is generally expected'.

LOOKING AHEAD TO BETTER RETURNS
Fonterra has pledged a 'significant capital return' if it is successful selling its consumer brands. It has also announced its strategy update, saying that streamlining its operations and focusing on its ingredients and food services business will allow it to grow greater value for farmer shareholders and unit holders. It's share price is up to $5.02 from $4.40 at the end of August, a +14% rise.

DRAWING A LINE UNDER A TOUGH YEAR
'Deleveraging' is the word as Synlait makes -$182 mln loss in year to June. They say it 'can now confidently draw a line under several of the difficulties faced and move onto the more important matters concerning running a growing and viable business'. This data has done little for its share price for the month, down almost -5% since the end of August to $0.39.

MORE WANTING TO SELL, BUYERS ONLY IN SOME SECTORS
The REINZ says August dairy and grazing farm prices rose, horticulture and finishing farm sales were weak. Grazing farm prices were up +37% in the August year, but horticultural farm prices were down almost -45% in the same period. Realestate.co.nz listing show many more farms are being put up for sale. The rise in September from August was the second fastest since we started collating this data in 2015. The rise is most notable in Northland, Waikato, Manawatu, and especially the West Coast.

NZX EQUITY MARKET UPDATE
Check out our quick update of how the NZX is faring today, as at 3pm. FBU books a rare gain today with Hallensteins. Kathmandu extends its decline but Port of Tauranga books a rare dip

SLOWING TO A SNAIL's PACE, BUT STILL RISING
Annual advertised salary growth has slowed to +3.7% in the year to August, its lowest pace since 2022. But at least it is still growing. Seek says the education and healthcare sectors lead the increases in the annual salary department.

SBS BANK LAUNCHED BOND OFFER
SBS Bank has launched its 5½ year $125 mln bond offer, ranking equally with all other present and future unsecured and unsubordinated obligations of SBS Bank, but behind secured creditors. It will be rated BBB+ by Fitch. The interest rate will be +1.5% above the base rate, and be set on Thursday. There is no public pool, they are only available through your broker.

LIMP & TIMID
Changes to bank lending balances were unremarkable in August across all sectors (C5), reflecting limp loan demand. Although it should be noted that there remains minor, timid 'growth'. About the best that can be said about the August changes are that they are at the upper end of the very narrow and low range we have seen for housing, business, and rural since about the start of 2023.

MOVING FUNDS AGGRESSIVELY
It is not unusual for customer deposits at banks to jerk lower in August, and so it was again in 2024. But household term deposits rose almost +$1.6 bln in the month. That was due to an almost -$650 mln net shift out of savings accounts and -$1.4 bln out of household transaction accounts (reversing out the July jump). Net changes in business and government bank deposits were far less volatile.

MORE DEBT FOR SUSTAINABLE FARMING
Pāmu Farms/Landcorp has "refreshed its commitment to ambitious sustainability targets" with lenders ANZ, ASB, and Westpac NZ in a second sustainability-linked loan. The facilities total $225 mln and include terms that "help to ensure farming activities contribute positively to the environment, people and communities".

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are probably little-changed today. Our chart below will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -3 bps at 4.87%. That is -38 bps below the OCR and its lowest level in ten months. The Australian 10 year bond yield is little-changed 3.98%. The China 10 year bond rate is up +13 bps from Friday at 2.22%, up +4 bps from this morning. Rarely do we see large and fast changes in this benchmark. Something is going on. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +3 bps at 4.29% But the earlier RBNZ fix was at 4.18% and down -5 bps from Friday. The UST 10yr yield is still at 3.76% where it was this morning. However, their 2yr is now at 3.57%, so that curve is more positive, now by +19 bps.

EQUITIES ALL HIGHER
The NZX50 is up +0.1% in its late Monday trade. However, the ASX200 is up +0.7% in afternoon trade. But Tokyo is down a sharp -4.2% as the yen surges. However Hong Kong is up another +1.9% at its open, and Shanghai is up +3.4% in the stimulus talk. Singapore is up +0.2% at its open. Wall Street looks like it might start its Monday with a 'good' rise, up +0.9% on the S&P500 according to the futures signals.

OIL UNCHANGED
The oil price is unchanged from this time morning at just over US$68/bbl in the US, and now just over US$71/bbl for the international Brent price. This despite all the crazy Middle-East tensions.

CARBON PRICE HOLDS
The carbon price is again little-changed today, back at $62/NZU, basically ending the month where it started. Volumes traded are still light. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD SOFTISH
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$6 from this time yesterday at US$2652/oz.

NZD MOVES UP
The Kiwi dollar has risen, up +25 bps from this morning to just under 63.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are still at 91.9 AUc. And against the euro we up +20 bps at 57 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now at 70.8 and up +30 bps from this morning.

BITCOIN SLIPS
The bitcoin price is down -1.4% from this morning, now at US$64,778 and back near its Friday level. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been modest at just on +/- 1.0%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».