A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; Heartland trims TD rates, insurance stress test result out, Auckland house building completes fall, commodity prices hold high, swaps and 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
No changes to report today. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Heartland Bank has trimmed its term deposit offer rates for most terms of 5 months and longer. No other changes but note that we have added Go Lend to our coverage.. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

JUST SURVIVING VERY SEVERE STRESS
The RBNZ has released the results from the 2024 General Insurance Industry Stress Test. The exercise assessed insurers’ responses to a major earthquake and severe but plausible cyber-risk incidents. The seismic scenario was based on a magnitude 8.7 earthquake along the Hikurangi Subduction Zone off the east coast of the North Island. The scenario was designed to simulate an event well beyond solvency requirements to enable testing of insurers’ preparedness and recovery plans. This scenario would result in widespread damage and a sharp decline in GDP. Participating insurers modelled property losses of $62 billion, which rose to around $100 bln if extrapolated out to cover the whole market. In both cases the policyholders would have been protected per their cover. But the companies themselves would have suffered severe shocks. More here.

BIG STEP DOWN
There was a big drop in the number of new homes completed in Auckland in February, with them slumping -43% from the same month a year ago.

KIWISAVER SURVEY RESULTS
Consumer NZ’s annual KiwiSaver survey reveals satisfaction rising but questions remain. Results from the nationally representative annual KiwiSaver satisfaction survey highlight the strengths and weaknesses of different retirement savings scheme providers. They said the top KiwiSaver providers were Generate – 80%, Milford Funds – 75%, followed by Simplicity – 69%, and those suffering the biggest gripes were ANZ, Smart, and Mercer - not so much for their returns, rather for fees and communication issues.

GOOD COMMODITY PRICES HOLD
The ANZ World Commodity Price Index was flat in April, with dairy and meat price rises offset by falls in forestry and aluminium. The NZD Commodity Price Index fell -1.0% in April from March.

NZX UPDATE
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is little-changed so far today. That means it is up +3.2% for the past week, down -5.0% since the start of the year, and up +5.0% from this time last year. Infratil, Port of Tauranga, Ryman, and Tower lead the gainers as SkyCity casino, Vista, The Warehouse, and Investore lead the decliners.

AVANTI MORPHS UNDER OHLSSON
Non-bank lender Avanti Finance is ... changing its logo. Not in itself notable, but it is an opportunity for them to remind the world how large they have become. "Avanti has grown into a multi-channel, multi-product lender operating across property, auto, personal and business lending. The company has scaled to over 270 employees, supports a network of advisers, dealers and brokers across New Zealand and Australia, and has surpassed $2.8 billion in assets under management – helping more than 300,000 customers to date." It is still essentially owned and controlled by Glenn Hawkins, and is now run by ex-ANZ executive Fred Ohlsson.

THE NZME BOARD STOUSH COMING TO A HEAD
Chairman Barbara Chapman has engineered Stephen Joyce to be nominated for a board position in the incumbent board's battle with Canadian raider Jim Grenon and Caniwi's Troy Bowker.

NO EXPANSION IN MARCH
Household spending in Australia slipped in March from February, to be +3.5% higher than March 2024. Of special note was the very sharp -1.3% dive in Queensland.

RETREAT IN MARCH
There was an even sharper retreat in building consents in Australia in March with a big -15% dive in consents for building apartments.

EXPANDING LESS
In China, the Caixin Services PMI expansion eased back in April, down from March’s three-month high to be below analyst forecasts. This is now the softest expansion in their services sector in seven months. But this Caixin version reported a slightly faster expansion than the official version.

SWAP RATES LIKELY STEEPENING
Wholesale swap rates will likely be little-changed today at the short end but higher for 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 3.40% on Monday. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up +6 bps at 4.37%. The China 10 year bond rate is up +1 bp at 1.63%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +5 bps at 4.59% and was up +5 bps to 4.52% in the earlier RBNZ fis today. The UST 10yr yield is on 4.31%, down 1 bp.

EQUITIES MIXED AS CHINA RETURNS & WALL STREET FALLS
The NZX50 is unchanged today, as is the ASX200 in afternoon trade. Tokyo is up +1.0% in early Tuesday trade. Hong Kong is back after its holiday, up +0.6% while Shanghai is up +0.8% in its return. Singapore has opened unchanged. Wall Street ended its Monday trade down -0.8% on the S&P500.

OIL RECOVERS SOME
The oil price is down another +US$2 at US$58/bbl in the US, and US$61/bbl for the international Brent price.

CARBON PRICE FIRMISH
The carbon price is has risen again, up +$1.25 to NZ$51.25/NZU and this time on modest volumes. 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 RISES
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$89/oz from yesterday at this time to US$3360/oz, still volatile.

NZD HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is down -10 bps from this time yesterday, now at 59.6 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 92.4 AUc. Against the euro we are up +10 bps at 52.8 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now still at 67.0, and little-changed from this time yesterday.

BITCOIN BECALMED
The bitcoin price is at US$94,383, which is virtually unchanged from the price this time yesterday. Volatility has been low at +/- 0.8%..

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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