A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; some TD rate increases, retail spending softer, PPI hit less than expected, record KiwiSaver funds flows, carbon price firm, swaps fall, 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
No changes to report today. All current mortgage rates are here. And note, you can compare mortgage offers with our unique calculator that takes into account other costs and cashback incentives, here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
BNZ has raised some key TD rates. Welcome upped its one year rate too. A review of where these bank and non-bank rates stand is here. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

ONLY BUYING WHAT YOU NEED
Despite further sharp increase in fuel prices, overall spending using electronic cards fell in nominal terms in April, with households cutting spending across all store types. Most sectors fell quite hard, including what was spent on fuel. But interestingly spending on durable goods and hospitality fell the least.

PPI STARTS TO MOVE UP
Maybe somewhat surprisingly, producer input costs only rose +1.8% in the March 21026 quarter from a year ago. But unsurprisingly, they were up +1.4% from the December quarter. And remember, this data only has one month (March) in it that would have been hit hard from the fallout from Trump's War. The real impact would appear until we get the Q2 data. Producers only passed on 0.8% of that 1.4% cost increase.

NO DIFFERENT ON THE FARM
For farmers, and excluding livestock, farm expenses also rise +1.8% for the year, with +1.0%of that in the latest quarter. In this data, it seems horticulture has been hit the least.

RECORD KIWISAVING
The latest data from the IRD tracking KiwiSaver payments to fund managers shows they handed over $1.75 bln of employee deductions, plus another $960 mln of employer contributions, and a dribble of Crown payments, all totalling $2.7 bln in the quarter. For the year to March, this is $11.1 bln all up and a new record high. (If only the fund managers added more value than some pretty average returns by many. Fund managers are required to 'communicate' with their investors, but most of them just talk their own book. According to Sorted's Smart Investor, the best conservative fund returned +2.3%, the best balanced fund returned +3.8%, the best growth fund returned +10.6% and the best aggressive fund +7.6%. These are the 'best' and actually not a great look for the industry. It is an industry that harvests huge fees. We are not picking on Simplicity here but they do tout their 'low fees', and their Conservative return (according to Sorted) is only 1.8%, their balanced fund 4.4%, and their growth fund 6.0%. Even these are weak by international standards.)

NZX50 UP
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +1.1% so far today, but still a weekly fall of -1.3%. It is down -3.2% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +2.2%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +3.4% from yesterday. Today's rebound is on strength from Gentrack, Mainfreight, F&P Healthcare and Summerset. But Kathmandu, Sanford, Tourism Holdings and Vulcan Steel fall.

OLD & ANGRY, YOUNG & UPBEAT
In Australia, the Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment survey is picking up a range of recent trends. Sentiment improved marginally despite the fuel shock, but within that more people are downbeat on their economy. The Canberra Budget didn't have a big impact though. Job loss fears are still elevated even if slightly less so. But homebuyer sentiment dis own sharply to deeply pessimistic levels. And consumer house price expectations have softened even if they are still positive. A key thing to watch across the ditch is the widening sentiment gap between young and old. The ‘baby boomer’ and ‘Generation X’ cohorts are extremely weak (angry). Sentiment amongst ‘Millennials’ is only modestly pessimistic. But ‘Generation Z’ is outright positive they note.

JAPAN RISING
Japanese GDP came in with a +2.1% (real) annual expansion are in Q1-2026, up from the +0.8% in Q4-2025. A rise was anticipated but only to +1.7%.

WHAT DID THE US-CHINA SUMMIT ACHIEVE?
The always excellent Bill Bishop has used AI (Claude) to compare what the Chinese think was accomplished, with what the US think. It is here. There is some overlap. But there is clearly much confusion on what was actually agreed. Basically we should expect both sides to accuse the other of reneging - and in turn, the great rivalry will just fester on.

SWAP RATES FALL
Wholesale swap rates will probably be down today, and possibly sharply on regional trends. 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 2.66% on Monday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is down -9 bps at 5.05%. The China 10 year bond rate is little-changed at 1.75%. The Japanese 10 year bond is down -4 bps at 2.75% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.77%, down -9 bps from yesterday. The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Monday rate up +7 bps at 4.82%. The UST 10yr yield is down -2 bps at 4.60%.

EQUITIES MIXED
The local equity market is back up +1.1% in Tuesday day trade so far. And the ASX200 opened its Tuesday up +1.0% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is down -0.6% at its open. Hong Kong is up +0.1% but Shanghai is down -0.2% at its open today. Singapore is up +0.7% at its open. Wall Street ended its Monday session down -0.1% on the S&P500, down -0.5% on the Nasdaq.

OIL PRICES FALL BACK
American oil prices are down -US$4.50, with the WTI benchmark just on US$103/bbl, and the international Brent price is down -US$1 at US$110/bbl. Trump has apparently said he isn't going to attack Iran after all.

CARBON PRICE HOLDS
There have been more dood trades today on the secondary market, some larger ones. The price has held firm at $52.50/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD LITTLE-CHANGED
In early Asian trade, gold is lower at US$4548/oz, up +US$14 from this time yesterday. Silver is now just on US$76.50oz and up +US$1.50.

NZD FIRMER
The Kiwi dollar is up +30 bps from this time yesterday against the USD, now just on 58.6 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +10 bps at 82 AUc. Against the euro we are also up +10 bps at 50.3 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 62 and up +20 bps from yesterday at this time.

BITCOIN LITTLE-CHANGED
The bitcoin price is now at US$76,550 and down just -0.3% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been modest at just on +/- 1.2%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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