A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; many retail rate moves, consumer sentiment hesitates, livestock prices rise, log prices stable, housing debt rises faster, TD's shrink, swaps up, NZ down, & 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). October's done! Only 54 days until Christmas.

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank cut some ket fixed rates today but nothing market-leading. All rates are here. And note, you can compare mortgage offers with our new calculator that takes into account other costs and cashback incentives, here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Rabobank has trimmed its term deposit rates today. SBS Bank has cut its rates too. And BNZ trimmed its 2.3% RapidSave account rate down to 2.00%. Squirrel has cut its rates for Construction Loan term investment and Home Loan term investments, both by -50 bps. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

SEPTEMBER WAS A MIRAGE. OCTOBER IS BACK DOWN TO EARTH
The October ANZ/RoyMorgan consumer confidence survey results are not happy reading. Inflation expectations rose to 5.1% (from 4.8%). The proportion of households thinking it’s a good time to buy a major household item (the best retail indicator) fell again. This indicator hasn’t been positive in more than four years. And the overall sentiment score fell, giving up last month's rise.

NEW SCAM ALERT
ASB is warning businesses to be alert for unsolicited cold calls from scammers impersonating ASB’s fraud team.

THE GOOD TIMES SHOULD ROLL ON FOR A WHILE YET
There have been higher prices offered to farmers for livestock this week, continuing an extended trend. This week it is especially notable for venison. Meanwhile Rabobank is reporting that global beef production is going through a period of lower levels at the same time demand is rising. The production stresses are especially notable in the US, Brazil and Europe, so they are market-moving. This underpins rising prices. The Chinese demand for Brazilian beef is especially notable for its rise and size. And countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines are experiencing strong per
capita consumption growth as well. One local outcome is that there will be growing tensions with local consumers who will resist paying sharply higher prices. Local farmers are likely to see more value-driven growth, leveraging quality attributes and established supply chains, even if their market share reduces.

OCTOBER LOG MARKET UPDATE
The log market is still in a holding state. Following the Chinese and Indian holiday seasons when demand usually rises, this year demand for logs has remained flat. Domestic demand is flat too, and sawn timber to the US are attracting tariffs.

NZX50 RISING
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index has kept its momentum in its Friday session, up +0.6%. That puts it +1.2% higher over the past five working days. It is up +3.6% year-to-date. From a year ago it is now up +7.1%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare recovered another +0.9% today. Investore, Heartland, PFI, Freightways gain as Vista, Kathmandu, EBOS, Gentrack weaken.

THE ECONOMY MAY NOT BE GROWING BUT HOUSING DEBT IS
Housing debt rose +5.2% in September from the same month a year ago. This was the fastest overall rise since September 2022. For banks, the rise was +5.7%, adding +$1.8 bln in the month and the pairing of August and September saw the fastest home loan book growth since 2021.

"SHOW ME YOUR BUGET AND I'LL SHOW YOU YOUR PRIORITIES"
Lending to businesses rose +3.7% in September and that is its fastest rise since April 2023. But the total volume of lending to business is now only touching $64 bln, a mere one sixth of what banks lend for housing. Btw, the quote is by Joe Biden.

SHORT TERM LIQUIDITY PRIORITISED
Household bank deposits rose +$1.3 bln in September from August and there is now almost $266 bln in these bank accounts. Term deposits accounted for $144 bln, but actually they leaked a little in the month from September, actually down -$657 mln in the month. Those funds went into savings accounts (+$728 mln in the month) and were left in transaction accounts (+$1.2 bln).

IT'S THE PREVIOUS GUYS FAULT
ANZ Group is cleaning house under its new CEO, with some sharp write-downs that will affect current earnings totaling AU$1.1 bln. But none of them relate to their New Zealand bank. This announcement has taken the top off its rising share price, but it is only back to levels it was two weeks ago, and prior to that it is still an all-time high.

NO RELIEF
In Australia, there is more evidence inflation is embedding at levels well above 3%. Today they released their Q3 PPI and that came in at 3.5%, unchanged from Q2, and up +1.0% for the latest quarter. Analysts had expected it to reduce.in Q3, but that isn't happening. The RBA will be as unhappy with this as it was with the high CPI result.

NOT IMPROVING
China's official October PMIs have come in without any significant improvements from September. They say their factory PMI is now contracting marginally more and a noticeable step lower than last month, and their services PMI is barely expanding, when a small improvement was expected. (Over the past few months, these official measures have been more conservative that the private S&P Global versions. But we will have to wait and see if that is still the case in October.) (For reference, the NZ factory PMI is better than China's, but our services PMI was contracting in September.)

SWAP RATES MOVE HIGHER
Wholesale swap rates jumped yesterday, quite different to what we had signaled in this report. But they are likely to have come back a little today although still holding most of yesterdays rise. 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 on Thursday to 2.51%. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is holding higher from yesterday's rise at 4.32%. The China 10 year bond rate is little-changed at 1.75%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +3 bps at 4.09%. The RBNZ data is now all delayed with Thursday's rate is up +4 bp to 4.09%. The UST 10yr yield is up +3 bps at 4.10% in a general shift higher.

EQUITIES QUITE MIXED
The local equity market is now up another +0.7% in Friday trade so far. These are another day of good gains. However, the ASX200 is only up +0.2% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened up +1.3%. Hong Kong is down -0.6% at its open. Shanghai is down -0.7% to start their Friday trade. Singapore is down -0.2% at its open. Wall Street ended its Thursday trade down a full -1.0% on the S&P500 with a weakening trend as the days session evolved.

OIL SOFT
The oil price in the US is softer, now at just over US$60/bbl and the international Brent price is now just under US$64/bbl and more than -50 USc lower.

CARBON PRICE STAYS DOWN
There have been very few trades today with prices holding at $52.90/NZU. The next official carbon auction is on December 3, 2025 and likely heading for another failure. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD TURNS BACK UP
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$68 from yesterday, now at US$4009/oz. Meanwhile, the World Gold Council released its Q3-2025 data today. It shows that Total gold demand grew +3% from a year ago to 1,313 tonnes, the highest quarterly total since at least 2010. Yet this was eclipsed by the value measure of demand, which jumped +44% from a year ago to a record US$146 bln (NZ$½ tln).

NZD DROPS
The Kiwi dollar is down -40 bps from this yesterday at 57.3 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -20 bps at 87.5 AUc. Against the euro we are also down -20 bps at 49.5 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is down -30 bps at 61.9.

BITCOIN SOFTER YET AGAIN
The bitcoin price is now at US$109,196 and down -1.1% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been moderate at just over +/- 2.3%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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