A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Thursday; ANZ raises rates, REINZ sees buyer caution, more cattle fewer cows and sheep, benefit claims rise, strong NZGB demand, swaps stable, NZD firm, & 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
ANZ has raised most fixed rates. Details here. Heretaunga Building Society (HBS) also rated some rates. 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
ANZ has raised all its TD rates for terms 18 months and longer. So did HBS. And Sharesies raised its on-call rate to 2.0%. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

SUBDUED
March housing sales numbers and prices were little changed from March last year but buyers becoming more cautious, REINZ says. Rising interest rates (see ANZ above) are unlikely to encourage these markets over the winter months

VANISHING
Just asking - where have all the 'build to rent' projects gone? There were heavily touted in late 2025. Could it be they never made any economic sense - unless naive retail property buyer/investors lined up to take out the professional promoters?

ENABLING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
Today a High Court judgment has found that NZ Super did not comply with it's governing law that it (among other things) avoid prejudice to New Zealand's reputation as "a responsible member of the world community". The specifics involve investing in Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and Motorola who are all active in operating in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank territories and are complicit in human rights abuses there.

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.

MORE BEEF CATTLE, FEWER COWS & SHEEP
Beef cattle numbers increased in 2025, while the number of sheep and dairy cattle dipped slightly, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Final June 2025 data showed that the number of beef cattle was up +4% (+153,000) from the previous year to 3.8 mln. In the same period, the number of dairy cows fell by -1% (-87,000) to 5.7 mln and the number of sheep also fell by -1% (-331,000) to 23.3 min. There was 7.0 mln hectares of grassland (excluding tussock), little change from the previous year. That is 26% of the total land area of 26.8 mln hectares. (Urban areas cover a total of 0.228 mln hectares or 0.9%.)

MORE PEOPLE ON BENEFITS
March quarter data was released today for the main adult benefit levels. They are all trending higher. Jobless claims are highest in the north, lowest in the south.

NZX50 RANGEBOUND
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up just +0.2% so far today. It is heading for a -1.3% weekly dip. It is down -2.1% from six months ago. From a year ago it is up a net +8.6%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +0.3% so far today. Genesis, Chorus, Investore Property and Infratil lead the gainers as Gentrack, Kathmandu, a2 Milk and Channel Infrastructure weigh on a fairly flat NZX50.

HEAVY DEMAND
$450 mln was offered in three maturities in today's NZGB bond tender, attracting 132 bids worth $2.087 bln. Yields were factionally lower than for the equivalent maturities tendered a week ago.

LGFA REDUCES ANNUAL BORROWING PROGRAM
The Local Government Funding Agency says, due to its high liquidity and lower than expected council borrowing over the nine months to March, it has reduced its June-year borrowing program by $600 miln to $4.25 billion. Bond tenders of $150 mln in both of May and June are expected to complete the year's borrowing program.

18,000 MORE JOBS
Australia's March labour market report was pretty tame. The employment rose by +17,900 (about the +20,000 expected) and the number of unemployed people fell by -4,000 in the month. The unemployment rate remained steady at 4.3%. Full-time employment increased by +52,500 to 10,174,400 (after the -27,700 fall in February) while part-time employment decreased by -34,600 to 4,593,300..

MUCH HIGHER INFLATION EXPECTED
The expected inflation rate rose by 0.7 percentage points in April to 5.9% in Australia. It was 5.2% in March. The sharp rise in April reflects the recent spike in oil prices, and makes it its highest since November 2022. In contrast, wage change expectations have remained unchanged for the past five months.

DOWNGRADED
In Australia, S&P has downgraded ASX to A+ from AA- on the basis of the risks highlighted by ASIC reviews that showed the exchange business prioritised short-term results and shareholder returns at the risk of the long-term health of the business. (This is what happens when fund manger interests take control of business leadership.)

NEARING THE BOTTOM?
China’s new home prices across 70 key cities fell -3.4% in March from a year ago, a minor worsening from a -3.2% decline in February. That was the 33rd straight month of contraction and the steepest drop since May 2025. Pre-owned home sales prices fell harder although for the first time in a while some key cities recorded month-on-month rises in prices.

UPBEAT CHINA DATA
China said its Q1-2026 GDP expansion was up 5.0%, and better than the 4.8% expected and the official target of "about 4.5%". And its industrial output was up +5.7% in March, they said. But their retail sales only grew 1.7% which will have been a disappointment because they really need a better rise in internal demand. All the good data reported is somewhat underlined by their data that shows electricity production fell again and for a fourth month, up just +1.4% from March 2025.

UP +25%
We should probably note that the bitumen price is now at US$4080/tonne, up +25% from the US$3280/tonne that prevailed at the end of February.

SWAP RATES ON HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are likely little-changed today. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was down -1 bp at 2.56% on Wednesday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is up +3 bps at 4.96%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.78%. The Japanese 10 year bond is up +1 bp at 2.42% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.68%, up +2 bps from yesterday. The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Wednesday rate down -3 bps at 4.64%. The UST 10yr yield is up +3 bps at 4.27%.

EQUITIES RISE
The local equity market has risen +0.2% in Thursday trade so far. The ASX200 is down -0.2% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened on Thursday up +2.4% in its opening trade. Hong Kong up +1.0% and Shanghai has opened up +0.4%. Singapore has dipped -0.1% at its open. Wall Street ended its Wednesday trade up +0.8% for the S&P500.

THE TWSE MOVES INTO THE BIG LEAGUES
Here's an interesting piece of perspective. The Shanghai stack exchange market cap is not US$8.9 tln. But Taiwan has just risen to US$4.1 tln. Actually, that is now almost as much the London Stock Exchange now (US$4.3 tln). Paris (Euronext) is US$4.6 tln. The NYSE is US$45 tln, the Nasdaq $42 tln. Taiwan is playing in the big leagues now.

OIL PRICES STAY UP
American oil prices have risen +50 USc from this time yesterday with the WTI benchmark now at US$91.50/bbl, while the international Brent price is little-changed at just under US$95/bbl.

CARBON MARKET SPRINGS INTO LIFE
There have been a surprisingly high volume of trades today on the secondary market, and the price has risen in response, now up at $47/NZU and its highest since early March. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trade, gold is steady at US$4816/oz, down just -US$6 from yesterday. Silver is up +50 USc at just on US$80.50/oz.

NZD UP AGAIN
The Kiwi dollar is up +20 bps from this time yesterday against the USD, now just on 59.2 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -40 bps at 82.3 AUc. Against the euro we are also up +10 bps at 50.1 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just on 62.5 and up +10 bps from yesterday.

BITCOIN FIRMS SLIGHTLY
The bitcoin price is now at US$74,992 and up +0.8% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been modest at just over +/- 1.3%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».