A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Thursday; Westpac shifts two TD rates, asking prices dropping, listing levels very high, open banking closer, passport fee to rise +15%, tax wedge low, swaps stable, NZD stable, & 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
There are no changes to report today. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Westpac raised its 3 month (+15 bps) and trimmed its 8 month term deposit rate (-10 bps). The Police Credit Union which trimmed its bonus saver rates. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

MODEST RISE
According to Cotality/CoreLogic, national median dwelling values increased by +0.3% in April to $819,096. Housing values are dropping in Queenstown but are on the rise in most other areas.

ASKING PRICES BEING SLASHED
Buyers are in control of housing market activity as vendors slash asking prices and stock levels remain high, says realestate.co.nz. A mountain of unsold stock and falling asking prices do not bode well for the housing market over winter but buyers will be happy - vendors not so much.

LISTING LEVELS
For the record, when we looked today there were 44,410 residential properties listed on realestate.co.nz, 48,501 listed on TradeMe Property, and 44,799 listed on OneRoof. And while we are at it, we can report that there are now 23,408 commercial properties for lease in New Zealand, the most since we started weekly monitoring more than a year ago, up +15% in a year. Most urban areas are reasonably stable, although Auckland's North Shore is at a series high.

STORM ASSISTANCE
Banks are rolling out their usual response to severe weather emergencies, like the one currently hitting the South Island and the lower North Island. ASB says it will offer and option to suspend home loan principal repayments for up to three months, offer immediate consideration of requests for emergency credit card limit increases and overdraft facilities, and offer tailored solutions for their eligible business and rural customers including access to working capital of up to $100,000.

GOVT CONFIRMS OPEN BANKING TIMEFRAMES FOR BIG BANKS
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson has confirmed ANZ, ASB, BNZ, and Westpac must have their systems ready for open banking requirements outlined by the Customer and Product Data Act by December 1, with Kiwibank to follow by June next year. Simpson says Cabinet has designated banking as the first sector under the Act, establishing the rules for how open banking will work in practice in NZ.

THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING A PUBLIC MONOPOLY
The Government is hiking passport fees ("it's not a tax"). They will on Friday, May 2, 2025, to $247, a +15% rise from the current $215. Keeping inflation low is what they want everyone else to do; those goals clearly don't apply to them.

ICEs HOLDING THEIR GROUND
According to the NZTA database, there were 6057 new cars sold in April, just marginally less than in April 2024. 3115 were ICE, 2501 were hybrids, and 441 were pure electric. (Only 39 were Teslas.)

NZX UPDATE
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +0.9% so far today following international trends that are downgrading risk. That means it is up +0.5% for the past week, down -8.1% since the start of the year, and up +1.2% from this time last year. There are 48 gainers, led by Radius, Kiwi Property Group, Kathmandu, Infratil and Tourism Holdings. There are 31 decliners led by Rakon, SkyCity Casino, Oceania, Manawa Energy, and The Warehouse.

STILL STRONG DEMAND
There were three NZ Government bond tenders today totalling $500 mln. They attracted 132 bids worth more than $1.5 bln. 46 of those bids were successful. Yields were slightly lower that at the prior equivalent events for those same maturities.

RUNNING AT NORMAL
Australia reported a merchandise trade surplus of +AU$10.8 bln in March. This was a good improvement from the relatively low +AU$8.4 bln in March 2024, but similar to the average March in the prior five years (+AU$10.6 bln). (Australia usually reports seasonally adjusted values, and are much lower than the actual values this year, for some reason.)

TAX WEDGE STABLE
Overnight, the OECD released its 2024 update on taxing wages, essentially measuring the tax wedge. The tax wedge is essentially the difference between what an employer pays an employee after tax, and the total cost to the employer after all the labour-based taxes and fees are included. It is measuring how much governments collect from the labour force and is a measure of inefficiency. Bracket creep is once force making tax wedges higher. New Zealand always scores near the lowest tax wedge of the OECD countries. In 2022 our tax wedge was 20.1%, in 2022 it was 21.1% and last year it was 20.8%. So stable. In Australia it is 29.8%, in the UK 29.4% and the US is 30.1%. Japan is 32.6%, France 47.2% and Germany 47.9%. So tax wedges are a major issue in other countries.

SWAP RATES STILL ON HOLD
Wholesale swap rates will likely be little-changed at the short end today. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was up +1 bp at 3.43% on Wednesday. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up +44 bps from yesterday at 4.19%. The China 10 year bond rate is still at 1.63% and will be unchanged over their holiday. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +1 bp at 4.52% while today's RBNZ fix was at 4.44% and down -4 bps from Wednesday. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.18% and up +1 bp from yesterday at this time. Their 2yr is down -4 bps at 3.62%, so that positive curve has extended out to +56 bps.

EQUITIES MIXED BUT MINOR
The NZX50 is up a full +1.0% in late Thursday trade. The ASX200 however is up only +0.1% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened up +0.5% in early Thursday trade. Hong Kong and Shanghai are closed for China's May Day holiday week. Singapore has opened up +0.7%. On Wall Street, the S&P500 was up +0.1% at the end in Wednesday trade after shrugging off a steep drop on the negative US GDP result.

OIL LOWER AGAIN
The oil price is down another -US$1.50 from yesterday at just under US$58.50/bbl in the US, and just over US$61/bbl for the international Brent price. It is perhaps worth noting that the new lower US price is now close to the Russian Urals market price.

CARBON PRICE UP AGAIN
The carbon price is has risen again, up +$2.25 to NZ$50.25/NZU and this time on a spike in volume. 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 RETREATS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$67 from this time yesterday, now at US$3239/oz.

NZD FIRMS
The Kiwi dollar is up +20 bps from this time yesterday, now at 59½ USc. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 92.6 AUc. Against the euro we are up +40 bps at 52.6 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just under 67.5, and little-changed from this time yesterday.

BITCOIN ON HOLD
The bitcoin price is again virtually unchanged from this time yesterday, now at US$94,830 (+US$144). Volatility of the past 24 hours has been modest at just on +/- 1.1%.

SORRY
We are testing solutions for our gnarly comment availability issue. We are not there yet however. :(

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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