A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; housing market flooded by sellers, values ease, many more auctions, building permits weak, IRD on the warpath, swaps low & stable, NZD eases, & 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
NBS (Nelson Building Society) cut home loan rates today, including its floating rate (by -35 bps). All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Westpac has trimmed some short TD rates, but raised its 90 day rate by +20 bps to 4.40%. NBS cut both savings and TD rates. All updated rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

FLOODED BY SELLERS
The housing market was swamped with new listings in October, moving further in buyers' favour with the number of homes for sale at a 10-year high.

REAL PRICE DROPS MORE THAN -5%
Meanwhile, median dwelling values dropped another -½% in October to be -2.9% lower in a year (when inflation ran at +2.2%). They have now declined for eight consecutive months, but the rate of decline is slowing.

WEAK & LOW
Residential building permits were little-changed in September from the same month a year ago. Some smell a market bottom because they haven't fallen any more over the past three months. But you have to be brave to 'know' that. New homes being consented are down -17,000 a year compared to two years ago. Weakness in townhouse consents continues to be a drag on overall dwelling consent levels.

NZX EQUITY MARKET UPDATE
Check out our quick update of how the NZX is faring today, as at 3pm. NZX50 slips with Tower, Briscoes and Goodman Property. But Vulcan Steel, the Warehouse and Channel Infrastructure rise

LESS CONSTRUCTION WORK COMING
After a stronger month in August, non-residential consents weakened again in September and in most regions. Office buildings are the sector with the largest retreat.

JUDGE JAILS TAX THIEF
The director of an asbestos removal and labour hire company has been jailed for three years in what a judge has called serious offending and the worst of its kind to come before the Christchurch District Court in the last 20 years. Melanie Jill Tatana, also known as Melanie Jill Smith, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on October 30 and jailed for three years for what the Judge described as a case involving the willful diversion of funds rather than business insolvency.

JUDGE IMPOSES HOME DETENTION FOR FRAUD
The Director of ACK Contractors, Colin Fitzgibbon, has been sentenced to nine months home detention and ordered to pay reparation of $83,563.65 by the Christchurch District Court on Thursday 31 October 2024 for falsifying records and dishonestly incurring debts.

FONTERRA GETS ALL IT WANTED
Fonterra ended up raising $300 mln of unsubordinated, unsecured five year fixed rate bonds at a rate of 4.60% ytm.

NEW TRADE DEAL
New Zealand and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have concluded negotiations on a trade agreement that is hoped to open up significant opportunities for New Zealand exporters in the Gulf region.

MANY AUCTIONS
We will not have an summary auction report tomorrow - because they are still going on. More than 500 auction events are expected for this week. You can find most of them already recorded in our Auction database - but it is a developing situation.

PROGRESS STALLS
Update: In nine of the past ten weeks, the number of net jobless claims by work-ready JobSeekers has fallen. But last week the fall was very minor, just -36 and far less than the -531 the prior week. But they remain +10,900 more than at the same time a year ago.

MORE SURPRISE VISITS FROM THE IRD
IRD staff are making unannounced visits to hundreds of businesses who they believe aren’t meeting all their tax obligations as employers. The visits are another round in their Hidden Economy work program and follows on from their successful liquor store campaign in the past year.

NOT CONTRACTING
In China, the private Caixin factory PMI confirmed the official version released yesterday - that factory activity has stopped contracting and is now expanding - barely.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are probably little-changed to end the week - again. Our chart below will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 4.51%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up +2 bps at 4.59%. The China 10 year bond rate is down -1 bps at just under 2.14%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -3 bps from yesterday, now at 4.53% while the earlier RBNZ fix was at 4.49% and down -1 bp from yesterday. The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.29% and up +5 bps from yesterday. Their 2yr is up +8 bps at 4.17%, so that curve is now less positive, by +12 bps.

EQUITIES MOSTLY WEAKER
The NZX50 is down -0.3% in late Friday trade. The ASX200 is down -1.0% in afternoon trade today. Tokyo has opened down -2.0%. Hong Kong is up +0.4% at its open. Shanghai is down -0.1%. Singapore is down -0.4% after its Diwali day off. Wall Street closed its Thursday trade with the S&P500 down -1.9% with a sharpish fall right at the close.

OIL FIRMER
The oil price is up +US$2 from this time yesterday, now just on US$70.50/bbl in the US, and just on US$74/bbl for the international Brent price.

CARBON PRICE UNCHANGED
The carbon price unchanged again today at $63/NZU in still light trade. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD RETREATS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$36 from this time yesterday, now at US$2748/oz.

NZD EASES FURTHER
The Kiwi dollar is down -10 bps from this time yesterday, now at 59.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -20 bps at 90.8 AUc. And against the euro we are also down -20 bps at 54.9 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is at 68.5 and doan almost -20 bps.

BITCOIN DROPS HARD
The bitcoin price has dived -4.8% from this time yesterday, now at US$68,918. That's a -US$3,440 dump. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been moderate at just on +/- 2.7%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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