A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; mortgage curve loses its inversion, Barfoots talk up November results, Centrix highlights hard-hit sectors, another milk payout rises, swaps & NZD little-changed, & 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
BNZ cut some short rates to market levels, an has started raising longer rates as the curve inversions fade. Details here. ICBC trimmed short rates too, and also raised longer ones. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
ICBC made matching term deposit rate cuts today. All updated rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

SELLER'S AGENTS TALK UP HOW GOOD IT IS FOR BUYERS
Barfoot & Thompson's sales and selling prices both headed higher in November but the agency has a mountain of stock to deal with.

NEGATIVE TRADING
September quarter trade data was released today, combining both goods and services. We may be a "trading nation" but apparently we are not so good at it. For the September quarter, there was an overall trade deficit of -$6.9 bln. (But at least that was less than the -$8.1 bln deficit in the year to September 2023.) And the only trading partners we ran a significant surplus with in this latest quarter ($100 mln or more) were Taiwan, Canada, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia. and the UAE. All up, these six totaled +$1.1 bln. But that was swamped by deficits with the EU (-$2.1 bln), Singapore (-$1.6 bln), Korea (-$1.5 bln), China (-$0.5 bln), and Australia (-$0.4 bln). We are in balance with the US.

HARDEST HIT
The wholesale trade sector is being hit hard as business failures mount. According to updated Centrix data, the hardest hit sectors are wholesale trade, construction and transport.

NZX EQUITY MARKET UPDATE
Check out our quick update of how the NZX is faring today, as at 3pm. Mercury, Tourism Holdings, Argosy Property, and Genesis all gain for the day overshadowed from declines by Serko, Meridian, Vista Group, and SkyTV.

HIGHER MILK PAYOUT
Māori-owned low-carbon dairy company, Miraka, has updated its base milk price for this current season, now with a mid-point of $9.60/kgMS, in a $9.10 to $10.10 range.

DOING ITS [SMALL] BIT
Despite scepticism by some political, farming and business lobby groups, Westpac NZ is pushing ahead with its ESG goals. It announced its 2027 targets today and those included increasing sustainable lending to $9 bln (from $7 bln currently of $102.1 bln total lending, or 7%), increasing lending in support of affordable housing solutions by +$1 bln, and reducing its own operational emissions in line with 1.5˚C. Generally bank lending will come with increasing obligations on borrowers to de-risk climate impacts, not only at Westpac, but at all banks.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are probably little-changed again today. Our chart below will record the final positions. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -4 bps from this time yesterday, now at 4.33%. The China 10 year bond rate has bounced off its low at 2.00% and is now at 2.03%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -4 bps at 4.43% while today's RBNZ fix was 4.38% and also down -3 bps. The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.19% and down another -3 bps. Their 2yr is down at 4.18%, so that positive curve is now just +1 bp.

EQUITIES MIXED
The NZX50 has fallen -0.3% in late trade today. The ASX200 is up +0.6% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is up +1.7% at their open. Hong Kong is down -0.4% at its open and Shanghai is down the same. Singapore is starting strong, up +1.0%. Wall Street started its week with a modest +0.2% gain on the S&P500.

OIL SLIPS MARGINALLY
The oil price is little-changed from yesterday, still at US$68/bbl in the US, but down -50 USc to US$71.50/bbl for the international Brent price.

CARBON PRICE STILL ESSENTIALLY ON HOLD
The carbon price is minorly firmer today at US$63.80/NZU today. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD ON HOLD
In early Asian trade, gold is essentially unchanged from this time yesterday, still at US$2635/oz.

NZD STILL SOFT
The Kiwi dollar is -30 bps lower than where we opened this morning, back to 58.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are still at 90.8 AUc. And against the euro we are still at 56 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now at 68.3 and down -10 bps.

BITCOIN FALLS
The bitcoin price has fallen to US$95,448 and down -2.5% from where we were this time yesterday. Volatility of the past 24 hours has remained modest at just over +/- 1.7%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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