What happened Monday

Economy / news

A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Monday; shop around for insurance, real estate agent commissions updated, sustainable financing still grows, but carbon price sinks, swaps stable, NZD on hold, & more

28th Apr 25, 3:59pm by David Chaston

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
The Wairarapa Building Society (WBS) cut fixed rates today. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
UnityMoney, WBS, and the Heretaunga Building Society all trimmed rates slightly today. Some big influences on where these rates are headed are discussed here. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

"SHOP AROUND"
Insurance Council says a survey they commissioned shows a 'low number' of us consider changing insurance providers and urges people to shop around.

$455 MLN OF 'VALUE' (?)
Although real estate agencies' commission revenue has improved substantially over the last two years, there's been very little long-term growth. Overall, real estate agencies earned an estimated $455 mln in residential sales commissions in Q1-2025. (This doesn't include what auctioneers earned, on top, and whether a place sold or not.)

TEACHERS TO GET THIR FEES PAID
The Government has committed to paying the $550 registration and renewal fees for around 40,000 fulltime and part time school and early learning teachers. The cost will be $53 mln for the three years to 2028. Interestingly the PPTA union welcomed the support, while the NZEI refrained from acknowledging it.

NZX UPDATE
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +0.7% so far today. That means it is up +0.3% for the past week, and down -7.8% since the start of the year, and up only +0.8% from this time last year. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is the big mover up today. In addition, Infratil, SkyCity Entertainment, and Oceania lead today's gainers, with Mainfreight, Scales , Stride, and Goodman topping the decliners

TWO MORE BUSINESS DAYS
The NZ Financial Markets Association has changed it rulings on what is a "business day" for financial markets. It now says any transaction on a provincial Anniversary Day public holiday will be good business days, for the purposes of that transaction. That includes the Auckland and Wellington Anniversary Day public holidays and will now be good business days for transacting and settling in our wholesale over-the-counter financial markets.

'SUSTAINABLE FINANCE' STILL GROWING
According to Fitch, finance markets in Australia and New Zealand that feature 'sustainable finance' products are still developing and showing signs of growth, driven by various factors accelerating their progress. Key drivers include efforts to adapt to climate change, aligning with global sustainability trends and responding to the increasing frequency of natural disasters. The Trump pushback elsewhere hasn't halted the demand for this type of financing or expansions in these markets.

PANEL DISCUSSION
For those wondering about apocalyptic climate outcomes, three speakers at an Otago University event will be for you. Their panel discussion is on May 12, and features 'inveterate protester' Rosemary Penwarden, retired associate Professor Bob Lloyd, and Steve Keen, the 'controversial economist', also former associate professor, and unsuccessful political candidate (who famously lost a bet on house prices). This event is being held by Wise Response, PDK's favoured activist group.

MORE CASES, MORE DISPUTES, HIGH RESOLUTION RATE
The Banking Ombudsman Service said between 1 January and 31 March 2025, they received 1,479 cases, up +3% on the previous quarter. They say they resolved 94% of complaints through their early resolution service. Disputes were up +18% on the previous quarter.

SWAP RATES STILL ON HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are probably little-changed at the short end again today' maybe a bit softer at longer durations. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.45% on Thursday. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -3 bops from this morning at 4.16%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.66%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 4.51% while today's RBNZ fix was at 4.48% and down -10 bps from Thursday. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.24% and down -1 bp from this morning. Their 2yr is unchanged at 3.76%, so that positive curve remains at +48 bps, little-changed.

EQUITIES FIRMER LOCALLY WEAKER REGIONALLY
The NZX50 is up +0.9% in late Monday trade to start the week. The ASX200 is up +0.8% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened up +0.5% in early Monday trade. Hong Kong however is down -0.3% at its open, while Shanghai is down -0.1% at its open. Singapore has opened down -0.5%. On Wall Street, the S&P500 ended its Wednesday up +1.7% in some sort of relief rally. Wall Street futures trade suggests it will open tomorrow little-changed on the S&P500.

OIL LITTLE-CHANGED
The oil price is little-changed from this morning at just under US$63/bbl in the US, and just over US$66.50/bbl for the international Brent price.

CARBON PRICE DROPS
The carbon price is has fallen sharply today, down -$2.50 to NZ$48/NZU but on skinny volumes. That is its lowest since early June 2024. The next official carbon auction is on Wednesday, June 18, with a $68 floor price. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD DIPS AGAIN
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$38 from this morning, now at US$3280/oz, and well off its highs.

NZD HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is down -10 bps from this time yesterday, now at 59.5 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +10 bps at 93.3 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at 52.4 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is just under 68, little-changed from this morning.

BITCOIN LITTLE-CHANGED NET
The bitcoin price is down -0.8% from this morning, now at US$93,623. But it has been volatile. From 9:40am to 1:40 pm today, this price fell -US$1590 or -1.7%. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been low at just under +/- 0.8%.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: RBNZ

Source: CoinDesk

Daily swap rates

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Source: NZFMA

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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38 Comments

by powerdownkiwi | 28th Apr 25, 4:26pm 1745814406

T'ain't just climate outcomes.

W/R is about the Limits to Growth.

Steve Keen has been interviewed here in the past: https://www.interest.co.nz/category/people/steve-keen

by J.C. | 28th Apr 25, 4:27pm 1745814438

KKR and Capital Group received approval from the SEC to offer two new credit funds specifically designed for retail investors.

- $1,000 minimum investment

- 0.84% fees (no performance fees)

- 40% private credit allocation

Question is why does KKR suddenly want to become mates with the little people?

https://www.privatedebtinvestor.com/capital-group-kkr-receive-sec-appro…;

by J.C. | 28th Apr 25, 4:48pm 1745815699

Global wine consumption back to 1961 levels. Never thought of wine as a 'nice to have' as its arguably value for money for boozers. And while volumes are falling, there is a trend toward “drinking less, but better.” Consumers are willing to pay more for higher-quality wines, which has kept export values relatively high despite lower volumes. Nevertheless, wine makers will have to produce better qlty at mass market to survive.

Major traditional markets like the US, France, and China saw significant declines, with the US dropping 5.8% and France 3.6% year-on-year. China’s wine consumption has contracted dramatically, falling from 15.0 million hectoliters in 2019 to 5.5 million in 2024.

https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/global-wine-consumption-falls-to-six…

by Ty Coch | 28th Apr 25, 5:12pm 1745817126

France was the single biggest contributor to last year’s decline in volume, with wine production falling 24% to 36.1 million hl. Italy increased output 15% to 44.1 million hl, overtaking its neighbour as the world’s biggest wine producer.

Wow. The traditional countries must have been throwing it back in 1961. World population has more than doubled since then as well.

by J.C. | 28th Apr 25, 5:20pm 1745817604

Aldi Italy has been selling Aussie wine and people are actually buying it. Lowest prices around AUD15, but at times they'll throw it out at AUD10. Aldi Italy regularly features other local and regional wines in the €2.50–€4.00 (AUD4.40 - 7.10) range, especially from southern Italian regions such as Sicily, Apulia, and Abruzzo. These wines are typically simple table wines, both red and white, designed for everyday consumption.

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 5:55pm 1745819746

its all the odds and ends, often with added sugar to get the brix level up.

Often seen 1.5l of wine in a carton there for 2 euros.

by IT GUY | 28th Apr 25, 6:18pm 1745821127

I love that phrase - everyday consumption..... P - even cheaper if you bring your own 2L container...

by Ty Coch | 28th Apr 25, 5:05pm 1745816740

The carbon price chart linked to has a weird C shape curve going back in time

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 5:50pm 1745819441

Check out this little bargain coming to market

-250m2 house

- close to transport

- 6 bedrooms

Only $110k, or half a Bitcoin

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cheaphousesjapan/posts/1370373017508084/

by Let me be Frank | 28th Apr 25, 6:20pm 1745821201

" and Steve Keen, the 'controversial economist', also former associate professor, and unsuccessful political candidate (who famously lost a bet on house prices). This event is being held by Wise Response, PDK's favoured activist group."

But not a psychologist

by powerdownkiwi | 28th Apr 25, 6:42pm 1745822540

Wise Response included an eminent NZ psychologist, and I hoped they might explain ways to get what is a very simple message, across.

My takeaway is that there isn't one; that as a species we're predominantly flawed thinkers. Interestingly, I emphatically include DC in the 'flawed thinking' list - despite the gentleperson-ly mention and exposure given. Picking points to support your POV seems to be hard to resist (I've just waded my way through a Krugman book and a Schiff one, in a purposeful effort to listen to all 'sides'; few bother).

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 7:48pm 1745826516

My takeaway is that there isn't one; that as a species we're predominantly flawed thinkers.

It's thinking in itself that's flawed, the rest of the universe (that we've been able to observe) operates on intuition, right down to small particle level.

Even when we look at our own personal decision making, endless rumination and contemplation rarely manages better answers than on the spot gut instincts. The "thinking" is usually just a waking dream.

by profile | 28th Apr 25, 6:50pm 1745823048

Goodness, how are out of touch are the "Wise Group"? The sky didn't fall on our head - we just fell out of bed.

"...When young people don’t date or marry or start families, that’s the bottleneck coming for the most basic human institutions of all.

And when, because people don’t pair off and reproduce, nations age and diminish and die away, when depopulation sweeps East Asia and Latin America and Europe, as it will — that’s the last squeeze, the tightest part of the bottleneck, the literal die-off.

This isn’t just a normal churn where travel agencies go out of business or Netflix replaces the VCR. Everything that we take for granted is entering into the bottleneck. And for anything that you care about — from your nation to your worldview to your favorite art form to your family — the key challenge of the 21st century is making sure that it’s still there on the other side.

That challenge is made more complex by the fact that much of this extinction will seem voluntary. In a normal evolutionary bottleneck, the goal is surviving some immediate physical threat — a plague or famine, an earthquake, flood or meteor strike. The bottleneck of the digital age is different: The new era is killing us softly, by drawing people out of the real and into the virtual, distracting us from the activities that sustain ordinary life, and finally making existence at a human scale seem obsolete.

Languages will disappear, churches will perish, political ideas will evanesce, art forms will vanish, the capacity to read and write and figure mathematically will wither, and the reproduction of the species will fail — except among people who are deliberate and self-conscious and a little bit fanatical about ensuring that the things they love are carried forward."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-cultur…

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 7:40pm 1745826059

There will be remnants. They've mapped low fertility and isolated it down to technology penetration (I.e. territories with low uptake of the internet and smartphones still have replacement level fertility).

The remainders will be lower tech, like the aboriginies of Australia, who've managed to exist as a culture (and without over depleting their environment) for some 80,000 years, while most civilisations have risen and fallen.

Nature has the last say. Or, expect some countries to start cloning people - which nature will probably have something to say about also.

by kiwikidsnz | 28th Apr 25, 8:33pm 1745829212

Low fertility is more about the efforts to ensure general education of women than technology.per se. The obverse result being typically in countries riven by religious fundamentalists &/or on patriarchal power & control trips

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 8:39pm 1745829568

There's several attributing factors, female education and employment being one, but the largest common denominator is technology adoption; people are forgoing forming romantic relationships in favour of experiencing life via a glass screen.

So even countries with higher rates of religiosity are falling prey to the same phenom of low birth rates. India for instance is still highly religious with a decent amount of patriarchal dominance in its culture, but it's birth rate is now below replacement level.

by profile | 28th Apr 25, 8:41pm 1745829668

"There are three major reasons for the rapid decline in the global fertility rate:

the empowerment of women — increased access to education and increased labor market participation
declining rates of child mortality
rising costs of bringing up children, with the decline of child labor

https://ourworldindata.org/global-decline-fertility-rate

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 8:50pm 1745830211

Half of males under 25 have never asked a female out on a date in person.

by interesting1234 | 28th Apr 25, 9:21pm 1745832110

Where did that assertion come from? Any links?

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 9:39pm 1745833142

There's quite a lot of data being formed about how lonely/single Gen Z is, particularly males:

https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/almost-half-of-young-men-have….

https://aibm.org/commentary/gen-zs-romance-gap-why-nearly-half-of-young…

https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/living-single/202008/half-of-al…

Or just witness how many of them spend most of their time; adolescent pregnancy, alcohol consumption, etc is going extinct. Having a relationship with another human involves a lot more effort than being fed little shots of dopamine from a computing device.

by interesting1234 | 29th Apr 25, 6:39am 1745865597

Christ thats bleak. The key message here is for parents: limit technology and ensure your kids go out and experience life. Can’t let them rot on devices or it doesn’t do well.

by Pa1nter | 29th Apr 25, 7:01am 1745866888

Ayup. Ironically we should be encouraging hedonism in our kids.

Unfortunately we're running a real time social experiment on ourselves with all this tech, with no checks and balances, using corporate interests as the guiding motivation.

by interesting1234 | 29th Apr 25, 10:07am 1745878041

And our brains/dopamine system as the test subject. Scary as hell on a societal level considering how simple life is without the likes of social media or constant contact with a cellphone. Makes me appreciate being the last generation to have a childhood without such perverse technology. Today kids grow up with the world trying to such everything it can from them: Attention, money, time, real social connection, real in-person learning, effectively many core skills humans have developed to bind as communities and survive.

by profile | 29th Apr 25, 8:48am 1745873330

Of course it doesn't explain why birth rates have been tumbling since the 1960's long before Tiktok/FB was a thing. More of a TV thing than a social media thing?

Kearney and Levine (2015)³⁷ studied similar phenomena in the United States and estimated that the MTV show “16 and Pregnant” led to a 4.3 percentage point reduction in teen births.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-decline-fertility-rate

by Pa1nter | 29th Apr 25, 9:15am 1745874908

Of course it doesn't explain why birth rates have been tumbling since the 1960's long before Tiktok/FB was a thing. More of a TV thing than a social media thing?

That's a "availability of effective contraceptives" thing.

As already said, there's a number of attributing factors. But now we have the ultimate factor; people simply aren't hooking up anymore. Everything else is moot, if people aren't doing the business in the first place.

Inevitably, courtships and procreation will escape us as a cultural norm, and the birthrate will almost disappear. It'll be like the film "Children of men", except rather than a virus making us infertile, it's how we've altered our own existence.

by kiwikidsnz | 28th Apr 25, 9:37pm 1745833026

LOL, Over approx 45years I've been married to 2 women + another serious relationship who all approached me first

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 9:39pm 1745833197

Not all of us can look like David Hasselhoff.

by kiwikidsnz | 28th Apr 25, 9:43pm 1745833434

I look more like Mr Magoo

by profile | 28th Apr 25, 8:38pm 1745829485

"and without over depleting their environment" That is the romantic view of aboriginals in Australia. All Australian land mammals, reptiles, and birds weighing more than 100 kilograms, and six of the seven genera with a body mass of 45 to 100 kilograms were wiped in within a few thousand years. It doesn't take many people on the organic carnivore diet to wipe out an ecosystem despite what the green grifters tell you.

"We record high levels of the dung fungus Sporormiella, a proxy for herbivore biomass, from 150,000 to 45,000 years ago, then a marked decline indicating megafaunal population collapse, from 45,000 to 43,100 years ago, placing the extinctions within 4,000 years of human dispersal across Australia"

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14142

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 8:46pm 1745830015

Nothing romantic about it, megafauna are slow moving and usually low in population levels.

Vs how we live, which manages not to discriminate on how large or numerous a species is for us to wipe it out.

How dare those greenies make us feel bad about ourselves.

by profile | 28th Apr 25, 9:53pm 1745833987

So one can wipe out all the megafauna without overly depleting the environment? Rather than than indiscriminate species wipe out how we live now is to bringing species back from extinction. Have a read up on Takahe.

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 10:03pm 1745834609

So one can wipe out all the megafauna without overly depleting the environment?

Did Australia become uninhabitable for humans because of this?

It's not a hard concept. Complex civilisations ultimately fail, because of the large environmental imbalances required to sustain them. Those that stick around longer, have to live in a way that's in more cohesion with the rest of nature.

Also works pretty well for interpersonal and commercial relationships

by profile | 29th Apr 25, 7:34am 1745868856

Bit of a goal post shift to go from without overly depleting their environment to uninhabitable for humans! How does one keep up with your reckons?!

by Pa1nter | 29th Apr 25, 7:56am 1745870165

In hindsight I could've worded the original premise more clearly. Although either way the result is the same, they lived in such a way to make their way of life continuous for 10s of thousands of years. It's not like the ecosystem collapsed due to the eradication of these larger animals.

Enjoy your Chinchilla underpants!

by profile | 28th Apr 25, 7:01pm 1745823689

But even Japan is being overtaken – or undertaken - by South Korea, which recently broke all records for low fertility. The country now has a TFR of just 0.8, which means that ‘one hundred grandparents will produce 40 children, who will in turn create 16 grandchildren,’ so that in two generations, 84% of the population will disappear.

As one Twitter wit put it, ‘in 2100, Koreans will be remembered as a quasi-mythical people who emerged from a period of violent division, made TVs 96,000% cheaper and then inexplicably vanished.’

https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/britain-is-running-out-of-babies

by powerdownkiwi | 28th Apr 25, 9:02pm 1745830951

Not 'inexplicably'.

The reason was overshoot.

One of the vehicles was peddlers of bu--sh-t.

Some not so far from here.

Painter mounts a sound case - no need to add anything, he nailed it.

by Pa1nter | 28th Apr 25, 9:54pm 1745834090

It's all perfect

The gatekeepers of technology have engineered it so everyone's attentions are fixated on screens.

This allows for maximum monetization.

But it also means the lofty valuations of these companies will never be realized, because by the time profits provide a return relative to the share values, your wonderful attention algorithms have meant no new customers have been bred

Guess they'll have to try and make us live forever instead

by interesting1234 | 29th Apr 25, 10:10am 1745878229

Could it not be argued that if society were to collapse in the absence of high density energy sources, and farming became the norm for survival, that children would once again become extra workers and procreation would increase?