A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; Kiwibank jumps the gun, FMA perp-walks ASB, eyes on dairy Pulse event, lamb prospects turn up, swaps stable, NZD down, & 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
Kiwibank cut their floating rates today by -50 bps. More here. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
All updated rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

COPING WELL
Nearly 40% of the country's mortgage holders are still ahead with their repayments. The NZ Banking Association says despite tough economic conditions, 'the vast majority of New Zealanders' are managing their financial situation well.

GREEN SHOOTS HARD TO FIND
QV says average housing values kept declining in September. 'Green shoots of growth remain scarce' in housing market, they say.

FMA PERP-WALKS ASB FOR BREACHES
In another civil court prosecution resulting from self-reporting by a financial institution, the FMA has filed proceedings against ASB. The FMA’s proceedings have two causes of action. The first relates to the failure to apply multi policy discounts on ASB-branded insurance products. The second is in respect of ASB’s failure to consistently apply fee exemptions to certain customer accounts with access to ASB’s Fastnet Banking service. As with the multi policy discount issue, the FMA alleges the failures arose through errors in the manual process undertaken by ASB staff. ASB did not have adequate systems in place to check that the fee exemptions were being applied correctly. 25,000 customers were involved. ASB has completed remediation work on both causes of action and has repaid affected customers, including use of money interest.

NZX EQUITY MARKET UPDATE
Check out our quick update of how the NZX is faring today, as at 3pm. Contact & Oceania make gains, FBU recovers some, Kathmandu keeps falling.

SIGNALS FOR LAMB DEMAND IMPROVE
Finally there is some lift in demand for lamb even as global markets remain challenging. Chinese demand is gradually recovering, though prices lag behind historic levels as resistance to higher pricing persists. In the EU and UK, retailers are showing strong interest in lamb for the upcoming Christmas season, while US demand for lamb racks remains firm. On the beef front, US demand is robust, but rising Brazilian imports ahead of the 2025 quota may pressure prices
in early next year. This update is from Prime Range Meats. The tables in our Rural section disclose current processor schedules.

POWDER PRICES TO HOLD?
There is another GDT Pulse auction tonight for WMP and SMP. Derivates market pricing today suggests there will be little change in prices from last week's full GDT auction event.

FORCED APPROVAL?
The Commerce Commission has granted clearance for Evergreen NZ Holdings to acquire 100% of the shares in ACM New Zealand. Both supply cash-in-transit services and both lose money as that market atrophies. The Commerce Commission judged that "Without the proposed acquisition, we consider that it is unlikely that both Evergreen and ACM would continue to provide cash-in-transit services in New Zealand.” So on the basis that some service is better than none, a monopoly was approved.

LESS NEGATIVE
In Australia, business sentiment became less negative in September. The NAB business confidence index 'rose' to -2 from August’s revised -5, amid notable improvements in retail and recreation & personal services.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are probably little-changed today ahead of tomorrows MPR. Our chart below will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down another -1 bp to 4.77%. That is -48 bps below the OCR and its lowest level in ten months. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -2 bps at 4.23%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 2.16%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -1 bp bps from this time yesterday at 4.36%. And the earlier RBNZ fix was at 4.32% and down -1 bp from yesterday. The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.02% and up +18 bps from yesterday. Their 2yr is now at 3.96%, so that curve is now only positive by +6 bps.

EQUITIES DOWN EVERYWHERE, EXCEPT SHANGHAI
The NZX50 is down -0.1% in its late Tuesday trade. The ASX200 is also down -0.1 in resumed trade. But Tokyo is down -0.9% at its open. And Hong Kong has dropped -4.1% at its open. Shanghai has started with a +6.6% catchup in return from holiday. Singapore is trading down -0.5% at its open. Wall Street ended its Monday trade with the S&P500 down almost -1.0%.

OIL RISES
The oil price is up +US$2.50 from this time yesterday at just on US$76.50/bbl in the US, and now just under US$80.50/bbl for the international Brent price.

CARBON PRICE FALLS
The carbon price fell -$1.25 to $61.75/NZU. Volumes traded are still light and bidding is soft. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD ON HOLD
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$1 from this time yesterday, now at US$2647/oz.

NZD SLIPS
The Kiwi dollar has fallen -20 bps from yesterday, now at 61.4 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +20 bps at 90.8 AUc. And against the euro we are down -30 bps at 55.9 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is down to 69.4 from this time yesterday.

BITCOIN DOWN
The bitcoin price is down -1.8% from this time yesterday, now at US$62,664. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been modest at just on +/- 1.8%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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