A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Wednesday; Cooperative Bank raises rates, dairy prices dip, eye on finfluencers, fuel stocks drop, huge fraud on Aussie listed, swaps rise again, NZD holds, & 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
The Cooperative Bank raise its home loan rates for all fixed terms 18 months to 3 years. But they have kept their very competitive 4.99% floating rate unchanged. 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
The Cooperative Bank has raised its 18 month TD rate to 4.00% and added +10 bps to its 2, 3 and 4 year TD rates. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

"CLEARER GUIDANCE NEEDED"; TREASURY NOT NEEDED
The Government is concerned the current system for reviewing major infrastructure projects allows investments to move through the system and lets bad projects gain momentum – until it’s too late – wasting tens or hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on Business Cases and early design and feasibility on phantom projects. "For too long, decisions have been made with patchy or inconsistent information, and with too little visibility of delivery risk," they complain. It's solution is five new changes to the Investment Management System; "stronger investor-focused assurance, better use of specialist expertise, clearer advice to Ministers, new assurance for asset management and long-term investment plans, and greater ministerial oversight of major projects". The changes include transferring responsibility for infrastructure project assurance from The Treasury to the independent NZ Infrastructure Commission.

LESS VOLUME, LOWER PRICES
Today's full dairy auction featured a low amount of product offered and sold. -10% less than for the same week a year ago. Overall prices were down almost -2.75% below the last full auction in USD, down -5.85% in NZD. Northern hemisphere seasonal volumes are rising so global supply is very adequate. The main weakness in today's auction were from butter (-7.9%), AMF (-9.6%) and mozzarella (-3.1%). But WMP basically held its own (-0.6%) and SMP rose (+3.2%). Demand out of China rose, offsetting the unsettled Middle East demand.

A REMINDER ABOUT RECENT FBT TAX CHANGES
Recent legislative changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) rules are now in effect. These changes may affect how employers treat certain benefits. For employers, these changes may affect how they tax some benefits provided to employees. In some cases, employers now have more flexibility to choose whether to apply FBT or treat a benefit as employment income with PAYE deducted. Employers may want to review how they currently treat motor vehicles, gift cards, and certain employee reimbursements to make sure they’re applying the rules that best fit the situation. See this guidance.

MAKING SURE FINFLUENCERS STAY IN THEIR LANE
The FMA has joined regulators across the globe in a co-ordinated Global Week of Action Against Unlawful Finfluencers to tackle the risks involved with unlawful financial promotions by online influencers. During the week beginning 20 April, 17 regulatory authorities are taking part in the second annual operation, undertaking enforcement actions, regulatory measures, consumer awareness campaigns and educational programmes for financial influencers, or finfluencers.

NZX50 SOFTISH YET AGAIN
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is down -0.2% so far today. It is heading for a -1.3% weekly dip. It is down -3.0% from six months ago. From a year ago it is up a net +9.1%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is down-1.4% so far today.

A SMALL DEPRESSIVE IMPACT
EBOS has trimmed its profit expectations based on the rising costs of freight and packaging which could cost up to $10 mln to be adsorbed. They now expect 2026 EBITDA earnings to be in the range of $610-$620 mln.

NEEDING A NEW CFO
Air New Zealand's CFO has quit. Richard Thomson had been with the airline for 18 years (interrupted by 4 years at Metlifecare).

FUEL STOCKS UPDATE
This is the latest MBIE update of current the fuel stock status: Note we have the least number of ship tankers on the way here since this monitoring started, and the least inventory of diesel. But the situation is not critical yet.

HUGE FRAUD
In Australia, listed travel management company Corporate Travel has released an explanation of the UK scandal that has had its shares suspended for a while. Apparently the fraud being uncovered in its UK division is very much larger than first suspected. Here is their explanation. Their shares are still suspended from trading.

STRONG EXPORTS
Japanese exports rose strongly in March. They topped ¥11 tln for the month, up +11.7% from a year ago, better than expected. This was the seventh straight month of export growth, boosted by stronger shipments to key trading partners including China, Taiwan, ASEAN, the EU, and India in that order. Sales to the US rose just +3.4%, the first rise in four months as headwinds linked to tariffs imposed by Trump eased.

WORST DEALMAKER EVER
And Trump has TACO'd again, extending his unilateral Persian Gulf ceasefire indefinitely. His excessive threats have dissolved into meaninglessness.

SWAP RATES RISE
Wholesale swap rates are likely firmer again today by about +3 bps across the curve on the expectation that higher inflation will bring a strong, earlier reaction from the RBNZ. 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 2.54% on Tuesday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is up +3 bps at 4.95%. The China 10 year bond rate is down -2 bps at 1.73%. The Japanese 10 year bond is up +2 bps at 2.40% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.68%, up +1 bp from this time yesterday. The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Tuesday rate up +2 bps at 4.62%. The UST 10yr yield is up +4 bps from this time yesterday at 4.29%.

EQUITIES LITTLE-CHANGED LOCALLY
The local equity market has dipped another -0.1% in Wednesday trade so far. The ASX200 is down -0.8% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened on Wednesday up +0.5% in its initial trade. Hong Kong down -1.5% but Shanghai has opened up +0.1%. Singapore has slipped by -0.3% at its open. Wall Street ended its Tuesday trade the S&P500 down a net -0.6%, but that was before the latest Trump TACO.

OIL PRICES RISE
American oil prices have risen +US$3 from yesterday with the WTI benchmark now just on US$89.50/bbl, while the international Brent price is up +US$3.50 at just on US$98.50/bbl.

BIG DROP
US crude oil inventories fell rather sharply last week. They fell by -4.4 mln barrels in the week ended April 17, far more than the -1.0 mn expected, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

CARBON PRICE HOLDS ON RISING DEMAND
There have been quite few trades today on the secondary market, and the price has held at $49/NZU, its highest since early November 2025. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD DIPS
In early Asian trade, gold is lower at US$4753/oz, down -US$51 from this time yesterday. Silver is now just on US$78/oz and down another -US$1.

NZD HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is little-changed against the USD, now just under 59.1 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +10 bps at 82.5 AUc. Against the euro we are also up +10 bps at 50.3 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is still just on 62.5 and little-changed from yesterday at this time.

BITCOIN MOVES UP AGAIN
The bitcoin price is now at US$77,546 and up +2.6% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been modest at just over +/- 1.9%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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