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
Heartland Bank (-15 bps) and Avanti Finance both trimmed their floating rates today. But check out the swap rate chart below which suggests fixed rate cuts are unlikely any time soon. 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
Squirrel reduced its on call account by -25 bps to 2.0%. And we expect board TD reductions tomorrow from at least one more bank. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.
MORE POSITIVE FOR MORE HOUSES, NOT SO FOR OTHER BUILDING
Residential building consents were on the rise in October, especially for townhouses, but non-residential consents were still in decline. Residential building work could pick up next year, however the outlook for non-residential work isn't so rosy.
QUIZ TIME
Life might be busy, but take a break and do our newest quiz. It is refreshed and ready for you again.
GREAT TIME TO BUY?
We are reporting this, because it is out there, ASB says its survey shows housing confidence is at a 15 year high. They claim the survey shows nearly one-third of respondents say now is a good time to buy property, the strongest result since 2010. These results also indicate the majority anticipate further drops in mortgage rates, but house price expectations remain modest. They conclude it is a "great time for buyers, with lower interest rates and strong housing supply".
NZX50 WEAKER
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index was down -0.3% so far on Monday. That puts it down -0.6% over the past five working days. It is up +2.8% year-to-date. From a year ago it is now up +2.4%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +1.0% today. The gainers are led by Vulcan Steel, Vector, Napier Port and F&P Healthcare while the big decliners include Heartland, Tourism Holdings, a2 Milk and Investore.
MORE TIER 2 FUNDS SOUGHT
Kiwibank said it is seeking more Tier 2 capital via a $200 mln of unsecured subordinated notes, and they have retained the option to take unlimited oversubscriptions at their discretion. But because it will be used as loss-absorbing capital it will be expensive and they expect to pay up to +1.7% above the equivalent five year swap rate which today is about 3.42%, so the gross cost will be something more than 5.1%. Kiwibank's five year TD rate today is 4.00%, but at least that is taxpayer guaranteed whereas the Tier 2 Notes will come with a heap of risk. (Never forget SOE Solid Energy.)
FORTY-SIX PERCENT SURGE HIGHER THAN THE PREVIOUS RECORD
Record trading in the May 2036 NZGB on secondary markets shoved the total turnover in NZGBs last week to a record high $121.3 bln. The previous record high was $82.8 bln in the week of October 3, 2025.
OUTAGE
In Australia, their main stock exchange, the ASX, has an embarrassing outage in its systems for the publication of company announcements. Securities halted as a result of a price sensitive announcement will remain halted until the issue is resolved. This could be very tricky for dual listed ASX/NZX companies because they will retain their obligation to report in New Zealand, but are unable to report in Australia.
RISING
The Melbourne Institute inflation gauge for November rose again and is now further above the RBA's 2-3% inflation target range. Interestingly, while this results is higher, it is lower than the official October CPI rate of 3.8%.
NO BOUNCEBACK
After a -2.6% quarter-on-quarter fall in company profits in Q2-2025, they were expected to bounce back in Q3-2025. But in the event they stalled, unchanged, in a disappointing outcome and only +1.1% higher than year-ago levels.
CULMINATING?
And staying in Australia, the Cotality house price tracking rose +1.0% in November, a slight softening from the +1.1% gain in October. Annual growth lifted to +7.1%, with quarterly gains tracking a +13.2% annualised pace. Sydney and Melbourne are the laggards, indicating that affordability has reached its serviceability limits.
SMALL CONTRACTION CONFIRMED
The alternative China PMI to the official version has also slipped. The S&PGlobal manufacturing sector PMI shows that conditions deteriorated in November, not by a lot, but certainly going the wrong way. There was no growth in new orders.
SWAP RATES RISE YET AGAIN
Wholesale swap rates are probably higher yet again today, continuing the shift up. 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 2.45% on Friday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is up +2 bps at 4.55%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.83%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +1 bps at 4.42%. The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with Friday's rate up +2 bps at 4.36%. The UST 10yr yield is up +2 bps at 4.04%.
EQUITIES MIXED
The local equity market is down -0.5% in Monday trade so far. The ASX200 is down -0.3% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is down -1.4% in its opening trade. Hong Kong is up +1.1% and Shanghai is up +0.3%. Singapore is +0.4% firmer at its open. Wall Street looks like it will return from its Thanksgiving holiday weekend down -0.3% when it opens tomorrow. At lease that is what the current futures trade indicates.
OIL ON HOLD
The oil price in the US unchanged at just under US$59.50/bbl and the international Brent price is still at just over US$63/bbl.
CARBON PRICE STALLS LOW
We can't find any trades again today so the price holds at the low $40/NZU, the lowest since July 2023. (It peaked at $90.5/NZU in September 2022.) 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 RISES
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$23/oz from this morning, now at US$4241/oz.
NZD STABLE
The Kiwi dollar is essentially unchanged from this morning, still just on 57.4 USc. Against the Aussie we are holding at 87.6 AUc. Against the euro we are also little-changed at 49.4 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is at just under 62 ans also little-changed.
BITCOIN DROPS
The bitcoin price is now at US$87,231 and down a sharp -5.0% from this morning. Volatility has been moderate at just on +/- 2.7%. South African-owned Yearn Finance, a decentralized asset management service, is suffering issues affecting liquidity in the whole crypto sector.
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17 Comments
survey says good time to buy a house
Probably true, interest rates are low, there is plenty of housing stock to chose from and house prices are likey to rise moderately in 2026 by about +5%.
Good the hear that you have inherited the wise, old sage words of ole Tony comb Alexander......most likely have egg dripping from face, as the comb did, as the NZ Housing market crash deepens further in 2026/2027:)
Sticking to the line company G, good on ya!
Sold stickers all around my town, lower north island, plenty of houses and bare sections sold over the last couple of months...if vendors are finally accepting offers then maybe an equilibrium has been found?
Boom, nope...crashing deeper, maybe also nope?
Things have been wibbly wobbly so long people forget this current environment is closer to normal than anytime in the last 5 years.
It would make sense to buy on the downward part of the curve in order to have more choice and less competition. Always hard to know of course. I remember back in the late nineties dillydallying and then finding I needed to buy a house in 2000 on the upward part of the curve and finding it really annoying that choices had dried up as well as being constantly out-bidded.
Black Friday. The impact of tariffs can be seen in data, according to Salesforce. Average selling prices were up 7% y/y, while order volumes were down 1% y/y.
The math doesn't lie: Nominal sales +3% against a 7% price hike means real consumption is down roughly 4%. The market is celebrating record spending, but the underlying volume data confirms the consumer is contracting, not expanding.
The real story: inflation is rising while actual consumer spending is slipping. Nominal dollars look strong because tariffs and price effects are doing the lifting - not because households expanded real demand.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2025/11/29/black-friday-data-sh…
GOLD RISES
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$23/oz from this morning, now at US$4241/oz.
Silver…. “Hold my beer….”
Never gets bought up at the water coolers across the Motu. Even if you don't own physical, exposure to ETPMAG from 2019 would be up 220%. Doesn't matter what Mary Holm and the IFAs say. Happy days.
Bigger question is whether or not the investment banker fraud has been broken. Rumors across Asia about a large commodity trader that requested a big physical delivery sending the CME in panic mode last Friday is true.
And GDX gold miners ETF now up 140%+ YTD. They would laugh at you at the Xmas parties for owning this. Not laughing anymore.
Yeah I was looking for a risk hedge back in 2018/2019 and one of my strategies was ETPMAG from ASX (after seeing what it did during/after GFC).
So must have purchased ETPMAG for less than $20 per share. Now trading at $76. So I might be up circa 400% on that investment (haven't really been looking to be honest recent years - been too busy fly fishing in spare time).
https://nz.finance.yahoo.com/quote/ETPMAG.AX/?guccounter=1&guce_referre…
Purchased GDX as well at a similar time (think I'm up about 400% on that as well).
Can vividly remember being laughed at by a few, especially 'Houseworks' or HW2 (or whatever his username was) as being a 'gold bug' for such an investment strategy, and that housing would be a much better investment.
We must be kindred spirits. I also went into ETPMAG and GDX in 2019 and added throughout 2020.
And got the hell out of GLD and into PMGOLD, which I believe is the only gold paper derivative I would go near.
I might have followed your advice back then (can recall some discussion between us around that time) and gone down the same path. Would need to check trading account.
Judges pool or Reid’s ?
i prefer the smaller rivers
I'm S.I. these days so rivers like Ahuriri, Dingleburn, Oreti, Eglington, Rees, Greenstone/Caples, Young, Wilkin etc
Silver Miners Are Sending Us A Message & Almost No One Is Listening...
“In reality the silver miners have higher profit margins then Netflix. They dig the rocks out of the ground for about $25 and sell it for $57. Their costs didn’t change. The market just handed them a BIG RAISE for doing the exact same job and yet, the miners are still trading below where they traded over a month ago. This disconnect will not remain for much longer.”
https://metalsandminers.substack.com/p/silver-miners-are-sending-us-a-m…
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan is now a billionaire. At least on paper. The platform still hasn’t turned a profit, but its valuation has reached $9 billion.
Boomers and the establishment despise Coplan. I wonder why.
On his cryptocurrency-based prediction market, customers wager real money on real-world events — everything from elections to sports, entertainment and even conflict. Polymarket has beaten the experts at predicting some outcomes.
"It's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now, until someone else creates some sort of a super crystal ball," Coplan said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/polymarket-predictions-accuracy-shayne-cop…
There is always money in illegal book making
give me 100lb of yeast and some copper line …. Older school…. Maybe some LED lighting
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaEJzoaYZk
Japan's Two-Year Bond Yield Tops 1% First Time Since 2008
The yield hit 1.01%, driven by expectations of a rate hike at the BOJ's December 18-19 meeting. Governor Kazuo Ueda noted the bank will carefully weigh the timing to meet its 2% inflation goal sustainably, with core prices in Tokyo up 2.8% in November. Markets reacted sharply: the Nikkei dropped 1.3%, the yen strengthened, and global assets like rat poison dipped. While higher yields may pressure exporters and spark some bond sales, officials stress Japan's economy remains on solid ground with deeply negative real rates.
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