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. Update: Kāinga Ora have trimmed all their fixed rates today. All rates are here.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Against the recent trends, UnityMoney has raised its 3, 6, and 9 month TD rates by +5 bps. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.
AFFORDABILITY IMPROVES
Our latest update to our Home Loan Affordability survey, this one for May, shows housing becoming more affordable for first home buyers as prices and mortgage rates both decline as incomes still move up. Now mortgage payments on cheaper homes are at their lowest level in almost four years.
STUCK NEAR WEAKEST EVER
Westpac's latest employment confidence survey (by MM) essentially finds employment confidence rose marginally in the June quarter, although it remains near its historic lows. "A perceived lack of job opportunities remains the key concern for households, though there are signs that the rise in unemployment is near its peak."
NO STRESS SIGNALS
Credit card billings rose at a +3.3% annualised rate in May from April, the best such rise since early 2023. But is alone like that and these billings are now only +0.6% higher than a year ago. So the May result could just be an outlier. Encouragingly, the proportion of credit card debt incurring interest dipped marginally in the latest data, so no signs yet in this data of financial stress.
NZX50 BARELY HOLDING
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up very marginally today, but down -1.2% for the past week. It is down -4.0% since the start of the year although up +7.9% from this time last year. Gains by Channel Infrastructure, Tower, Vector and Oceania lead the NZX today, but Sky TV, Vista, Fletcher and Kathmandu all fall.
SIGNALING MORE LARGE WRITEDOWNS
Ailing construction giant Fletcher Building has signposted potential writedowns of up to $780 million in its financial year about to end.
SECURITISING EQUIPEMENT LEASES
Speirs says it will securitise $200 mln of car and equipment receivables sonn in an upcoming bond offer. Spiers is now ultimately owned by Australian shareholders also specialist in equipment leasing.
GROUNDWATER SURVEY UPDATE
StatsNZ reported on groundwater quality and because recent improvements in both coverage and monitoring, the results are not strictly comparable to earlier reviews . They found that groundwater quality varies across the country, depending on land use, and underlying geology. There are areas with good quality groundwater, as well as sites with high levels of contamination. the standard for 'good' is drinking water quality, even though much of the resource is not used for that. The Canterbury Plains have easily the most intensively tested and the most sub-standard water quality for the e-coli test.
GROWTH UPGRADES
S&P Global Ratings published its latest global economic update which announced upward revisions to many of their GDP forecasts, including for China and India. They have raised our forecasts for China's GDP growth to +4.3% in 2025 (from +3.5% in the last round of forecasts), while our forecast for India’s GDP growth has risen to +6.5% for 2025 (from +6.3%). For Australia their 2025 forecast growth is lower by -0.1% to +1.6%, and New Zealand's has been boosted by 0.2% to +1.5%.
FEELING MUCH BETTER
In South Korea, consumer sentiment has improved sharply since the election of a reform-minded new president. Apart from a brief post-pandemic spike, they haven't been this optimistic there since 2017.
SWAP RATES STILL ON HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are likely a little softer today but it will be marginal. 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 3.30% on Monday. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -5 bps at 4.17%. The China 10 year bond rate is holding at 1.64%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -4 bps at 4.59% but was up +2 bps at 4.56% in the earlier RBNZ fix today. The UST 10yr yield is now down -5 bps from this time yesterday, back to 4.35%.
EQUITIES MOSTLY HIGHER
The NZX50 is now down -0.1% so far today as risk aversion extends here. The ASX200 however is up +1.0% in Tuesday afternoon trade. Tokyo is up +1.1% in early Tuesday trade. Hong Kong is up +1.9% at its open while Shanghai is up +0.9%. Singapore has opened up +0.4%. Wall Street ended its Monday session up +1.0% on the S&P500.
OIL PRICES FALL AWAY
The oil price is lower in the US, back to just over US$67/bbl and down -US$8 from this time yesterday. It is to now under US$70 for the international Brent price.
CARBON PRICE FIRMS AGAIN
The carbon price is up another +50c at NZ$59/NZU but only on more and bigger trades. The next official carbon auction is on September 10, 2025. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.
GOLD IN FURTHER DIP
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$15/oz from yesterday at US$3350/oz.
NZD BOUNCES BACK
The Kiwi dollar is up +80 bps from this time yesterday at 60.1 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +10 bps at just on 92.6 AUc. Against the euro we are up +20 bps at 51.8 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now almost at 68 and up +0 bps.
BITCOIN RECOVERS FURTHER
The bitcoin price is now at US$104,861 and up +3.6% from this morning after the sharp -3.5% weekend fall. Volatility has been moderate at just on +/-2.8%.
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19 Comments
Unable to comment on the golden vis article despite it saying "we welcome your comments below".
Indeed.
woops, an unintentional mistake by us. Sorry. They are open now on that story.
Interesting fact that the Canterbury Plains provide a water quality with the highest content of e-coli. Yet water bottling plants, sited at redundant scouring and freezing works, were exporting said water as being of pure origin. While that activity has been paused application can be made to resume should new licenses be approved.
"To the hammer, everything else is a nail"
IRD appears to be emitting a few ideological brain farts recently
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/565027/opposition-mounts-to-new-tax…
"a bit of an overkill"...really? it's only $460k / toilet
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellington-public-toilets-cost-23-million….
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/flush-success
My part of the woods - we do it our way...
Ageing farm, orchard owners need succession to protect $150bn of assets - new report
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/565016/ageing-farm-orchard-owners-ne…
Interesting kiwikidsnz, , thing is they mainly talk about good productive family farms. Mostly dairy and in one case a huge low productive farm that has an interested lot of inheritors. Of course the inheritors of the vast area of low value land in a remote region will want to keep it as more than likely they have off farm income and between them holding on is obvious, why not?
The fact is many basic hill sheep and beef properties are less desirable to many, other than the die hard wannabe farmers. These types are decreasing fast. The realities of a lot of physical work for very little return is turning many rural born against buying into these type of properties.
I see real issues with pricing low productive hill country in the future. Particularly with forestry investors pulling out, which they are. Whatever Federated Farmers say, the price of low value pastural land will decrease. The boom days of manuka honey and carbon are over.
Where a lot of this land, besides the good stuff, will be sold to is a mystery.
mmmmmm One may say the transfer of $150 Billion in assets is a prime target for a new tax.
As more and more economists and policymakers begin to realize that large, persistent trade imbalances are indeed a problem for the global economy, Martin Wolf calls for a tax on capital inflows.
It is a question raised in other areas, too, notably the interaction of his trade policy with his [Trump] fiscal policy. The aim of the former is to reduce, if not eliminate, trade deficits. The aim of the latter is to run huge fiscal deficits. These two objectives are incompatible. Large external deficits mean, by definition, that the country is spending more than its income. Since the US economy is running close to its potential, with an unemployment rate at only 4.2 per cent, no quick way to raise incomes still further exists. So reducing the external deficit will require reductions in national spending.
https://www.ft.com/content/e2c8c6c3-0cdc-4aa8-a47d-399407c75ad9
Highly recommended read to see the following:
- Countries with high national savings rates have highly repressed consumption
- Countries with low domestic consumption have large manufacturing sectors
Interesting read. It's almost as if countries that are better savers have better manufacturing sectors and potentially inferring more fulfilled lives resulting in lack of consumption. People who are content don't want more and more, or buy things they don't really need....as often.
Good news in the Middle East. Trump the peacemaker.
In the fashion then of Samuel Colt and his namesake 45?
Malice in Blunderland
Geiringer beat me to it, but it's a goodie
Not much has changed since the Kenny Everett sketch's in the 1990s
Round em up, put em in a field and bomb the bastards.....
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