A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; more retail rate cuts, job numbers turn up, tractor numbers turn down, R/E agent commissions solid, swaps 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 RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank and TSB were among the banks that cut fixed home loan rates today. Here is a full review. There were also rate cuts from Nelson Building Society (NBS), Wairarapa Building Society, and the Police Credit Union. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank and TSB were also among the banks that cut term deposit rates today. Cut were also announced by the Bank of China, NBS, and the Police CU. Here is a full review.. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

JOB SHRINKAGE
Filled job numbers grew for second consecutive month in December. This rise may indicate that the rate of unemployment is close to peaking. But year-on-year there is still job shrinkage. If you are aged 35-39 years, the latest employment indicator data shows you are in the sweet spot for job demand. This is the only age range where the number of filled jobs rose (+2.7%) in December from the same month a year ago. It is hardest for those 29 and younger. For workers 15-19, jobs were down -9.2%, for 20-24 they were down -2.5% and for those 25-29 they were down -4.4% from a year ago. Women are doing better than men, and the biggest rises are in the healthcare sector. Essentially it seems that the only employment growth sector is for experienced nurses.

24 YEAR LOW & WEAK DEMAND PERSISTS
There were only 1978 new tractors sold in 2024. You have to do back to 2000 to find a lower annual sales level. There were only 155 sold in December, and that was far below the ten year average for a December of 223 (-30%).

SOLID IMPROVEMENT
Vendors paid an estimated $1.77 bln to realtors in residential real estate sales commissions last year, a solid improvement over the 2023 year.

ANZ SEEKS NEW LONG-TERM FUNDING
ANZ NZ said it is looking to raise five year funding in the local bond market. It didn't say how much it is targeting it usually comes with an option for "unlimited oversubscriptions". The offer will be for bonds that are "unsecured unsubordinated fixed rate bonds". They will be "the same class as existing quoted debt securities." Like their other issues, this one will no doubt be priced at a margin over swap. The current swap rate is about 3.70%. In the similar year-ago ANZ bond issue, the margin was +67 bps. If that applies this time (unknown) then they will be raising this five-year funding at about 4.40%. (ANZ offers TD savers 4.30% at present.)

BRAZIL WENT HARD EARLY, OPENING OPPORTUNITY FOR US
We perhaps should have noted this yesterday, but the following comment by Prime Range Meats caught our eye. "Demand for ovine products from the UK and EU remains strong and is expected to persist. On the beef front, Brazil exhausted its 2025 US beef quota in just 17 days. Any additional Brazilian beef entering the US will now face a 26.4% tariff, providing New Zealand beef with a competitive edge in the US market over Brazil for the rest of the year."

NZX50
Here are the key changes to know about in the New Zealand equity market. As at 3pm, the NZX50 is down -0.3%. Gainers led by EBOS, a2Milk and Auckland Airport. But Infratil, Meridian, and SkyTV were the big decliners

STILL NOT NET-POSITIVE
In Australia, the December NAB business sentiment survey remained negative, but a little less so. The same survey shows businesses thing conditions are positive, and a little more so.

SWAP RATES SOFTER
Wholesale swap rates could be a little softer today so keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was down -2 bps on Monday at 3.98%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is unchanged of course while they were on holiday at 4.47%. The China 10 year bond rate has held at 1.63%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -7 bps at 4.59% while today's RBNZ fix was 4.55% and down -8 bps. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.55% and down -3 bps from where we were this time yesterday. Their 2yr is also down -3 bps to just on 4.21%, so that positive curve is now down at +33 bps.

EQUITIES MIXED ON TECH EXPOSURES
The NZX50 is dowen -0.4% from this time yesterday. The ASX200 is up +0.1% from their Friday close, after their long holiday weekend. Tokyo is down -0.7% in early Tuesday trade. Hong Kong is up +0.4%. Shanghai is down -0.1% at their open. But Singapore is up +0.9%. Wall Street ended its Monday session down -1.5% on the S&P500. The Nasdaq ended -3.1%.

OIL HOLDS LOWER
The oil price is little-changed from this time yesterday at under US$73.50/bbl in the US, and just over US$77/bbl for the international Brent price.

CARBON PRICE DIPS AGAIN
The carbon price is still within its tight range, but dipped again today to NZ$63.25/NZU. The next release of units at the official auction is on March 19, 2025. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD SLIPS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$21 from yesterday, now at US$2742/oz.

NZD SOFTISH
The Kiwi dollar has slipped a minor -10 bps from this time yesterday, now at 56.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 90.4 AUc. But against the euro we are down -10 bps at 54.2 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 67.2 and down -10 bps from yesterday.

BITCOIN MARGINALLY FIRMER
The bitcoin price has moved up +0.4% to US$101,782 from this time yesterday. In between it fell below US$100,000. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been moderate at just under +/- 2.5%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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