A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Thursday; BNZ cuts some home loan rates, lower income households struggle more with housing costs, business sentiment stays elevated, swaps stable, NZD rises, & 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
BNZ has followed Westpac and lowered its 3-5 yr fixed rates. More here. All current mortgage 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
Co-operative Bank, Xceda Finance and Liberty Financial all raised their TD rates. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

MORE ON STRUGGLE STREET
StatsNZ released its household income and housing-cost statistics for the year ended June 2025 today. That shows 3 in 5 lower income households spend at least 40% of their income on housing. An increasing proportion of households consider their income is ‘not enough’ or only ‘just enough’ to meet everyday needs.

LOWER BUT STILL STRONG, EVEN AS COST PRESSURES RISE
The ANZ Business Outlook survey for February shows inflation pressures are continuing to rise. The survey shows business confidence fell 5 points in February, but is at a level that is still very strong. 'The fact is, the economy surprises forecasters all the time, and we’re keeping an open mind', ANZ said.

SMALL IMPROVEMENT
Kiwibank has reported an interim six month profit of $103 mln up 12% from the same period a year ago. Kiwibank is 'well positioned' CEO says, after that half-year profit rise despite lower net interest margin. Kiwibank's return on shareholders funds is less than 7%, about half the industry average (and not enough to attract investors for their abandoned recent capital offer).

BOUNCEBACK
Heartland Group has bounced back strongly reporting a six-month $48.8 mln profit, up from $3.6 mln in the same period a year ago. The reverse mortgage specialist says its on-track to meet its profit target of at least $85 mln for the current financial year. It needs this bounceback, and more, to bolster its perilously low return on shareholder funds.

DEMAND SURGE FOR SAFETY
There was a notable surge in demand for NZ Government bonds at today's tender. 41 of the 105 bids were accepted with yields falling from the prior events two weeks ago. And that was because bids totaled $2.16 bln for the $450 mln available.

TAKE A BREAK AND DO OUR QUIZ
Our quiz has been updated for this week's edition. You can do it here. And a new one will be added every Monday.

SPOT CHECKS REVEALS COMPLIANCE ISSUES
Regulator MBIE has been checking construction industry compliance with laws and standards. From the 147 companies checked in Napier, Morrinsville, Pōkeno, Wellington, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Hamilton and all parts of the Auckland metro area they found evidence at several companies of breaches of minimum employment standards, cash wage payments and poor record keeping. Operation Rimu involved teams from MBIE’s Labour Inspectorate and Immigration Compliance and Investigations with Tenancy Services and the Companies Office on standby.

NORMALISING
You will recall there was a huge +73% surge in new lending for residential borrowers in December.2025 over the same month a year ago, a massive +$14.1 bln and the most ever for any month. In January the surge subsided, but it was still +17.5% higher than the year-ago level at +$6.0 bln. And that was enough to be the most for any January on record - except for the pandemic explosion which came in at $6.4 bln of new residential lending.

HIGH-STRESS BORROWERS CHANGE BANKS
A feature of this new lending is the rise and rise of the loan amounts for those borrowers changing banks. The average size of a loan when 'loan provider' is changed is now $723,500 and a record high. And that is up +9.6% from a year ago, the fastest rise in a year. Going the other way, the average top-up loan is down -17% to just $87,300, although these typically drop in January.

LIVESTOCK PRICES EASE, EXCEPT ...
Livestock prices are now showing signs of easing lower across most processors, for both beef and lamb. But interestingly venison prices rose this week, something that hasn't happened in more than two months. It isn't a big rise, but they are now at their highest level for deer since late 2018.

NZX50 RISES
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +0.4% so far today. That still puts it up +1.0% over the past five working days. and up +4.8% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +9.1%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +1.0% so far today. Summerset, NZX, SkyTV, and Gentrack are the main gainers while Precinct, Air NZ, Skellerup, and Vector all decline.

AIR NZ LOSS DRIVEN BY COMPOUND FACTORS
Our national airline says the half year loss was largely driven by global engine maintenance delays, slower than expected recovery in domestic demand, increasing aviation system costs and a weaker New Zealand currency. They lost -$40 mln in first half of year and forecasts further loss in the second half.

PERPETUAL DIVES BACK IN
Perpetual Guardian has acquired Trustees Executors corporate supervision division. It previously operated and sold the Guardian Trust and Covenant corporate trustee and supervisor businesses in 2021, so it is returning to this business, and this acquisition Perpetual becomes the largest fiduciary services business in New Zealand. It involves having clients like Milford Asset Management, Fisher Funds, Midlands Fund Management; and the NZX-listed Vital Healthcare Property Trust.

REAL GAINS VANISH
In Australia, wage growth is slowing. Average weekly ordinary time earnings for full-time adults were $2,051.10 in November, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That is annual growth of +3.8%. This was lower than the annual growth of +4.5% seen to May 2025 and +4.6% to November 2024. Now it just matches CPI inflation.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are probably little-changed to marginally softer today. 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 2.49% on Wednesday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is down -11 bp at 4.71%. The China 10 year bond rate is up +2 bps at 1.82%. The Japanese 10 year bond is up +5 bps at 2.15% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.39%, down -1 bp from this time yesterday. The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with Wednesday's rate up +1 bp at 4.36%. The UST 10yr yield is unchanged from yesterday, now just on 4.04%.

EQUITIES MIXED
The local equity market has risen +0.6% in Thursday trade. And the ASX200 is also up +0.6% in afternoon trade but that is more than a 3 year high. Tokyo is up +0.7% in its opening trade. Hong Kong is down -0.2% and Shanghai is down -0.1%. Singapore is also down -0.1%. Wall Street was up another +0.8% on the S&P500 at the end of its Wednesday trade,

OIL DIPS SLIGHTLY AGAIN
American oil prices are back down -50 USc at just over US$65.50/bbl, while the international Brent price is on US$71/bbl.

CARBON PRICE FIRM
There have been few trades today on the secondary market, but the price has pushed up slightly to $47.50/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD FIRMS SLIGHTLY AGAIN
In early Asian trade, gold has risen slightly from this time yesterday, up +US13/oz and now at US$5193/oz. Silver is unchanged at just on US$89/oz.

NZD FIRMS AGAIN ON WEAKER USD
The Kiwi dollar is up +40 bps from this time yesterday against the USD, now at just on 60.1 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 84.3 AUc. Against the euro we up +10 bps at 50.8 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just on 63.5 and up +30 bps from this morning.

BITCOIN RISES
The bitcoin price is now at US$68,162 and up +3.3% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been high, also at +/- 3.3%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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