A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Thursday; some significant retail rate changes, better economic activity data but not for housing, NZGB tender draws high demand, swaps soft, NZD very soft, & 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 all its fixed home loan rates today. For full details, see this. 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
SBS Bank hiked its one year TD rate today from 3.90% to 4.50% and easily the best one year rate from any bank. ANZ raised their 9 and 12 month TD rates by +15 bps. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

MAY UPTURN
The May update from ANZ on what they saw in their card spending patterns shows a strong +1.8% monthly lift in spending, with sharp bounce-back at discretionary-type stores. Hospitality rose +3.5% from April. Apparel was up +2.9%. Housing durables rose +2.7%. (all on a seasonally adjusted basis). The only headline category to fall in May was “motor vehicles & fuel” as fuel prices retreated.

BECALMED
Cotality says housing values are treading water nationally according to their Home Value Index for May 2026.

A DECADE LOW
In a quarterly update that builds into the Q1-2026 GDP result, StatsNZ said today that the volume of building work put in place declined -3.5% between the December 2025 and March 2026 quarters, with falls in residential (-2.2%) and non-residential activity (-4.0%). This means that quarterly building activity was at its lowest level since the end of 2015 (pandemic excepted).

NEW HYBRIDS RULE
New passenger car registrations reached 18,173 units in May 2026, up +20.1% compared with May last year, according to NZTA data. Plug-in hybrids let the way. On the other hand, used imports slipped -1.5% on the same basis to 7162 registrations.

BROADLY STEADY
ANZ said its World Commodity Price Index rose +0.7% m/m in May, with all commodity groups in the index seeing incremental gains. Dairy prices rose +0.1% m/m, with higher milk powder prices offsetting lower butter prices. Over the past year, skim milk powder prices are up +25.8% while butter prices are down -29.2%.

CROWN ACCOUNTS RECOVERY IN APRIL
There was a sharpish narrowing of the Crown accounts deficit in April with the OBEGAL deficit coming in at -$382 mln in the month, the lowest April level since 2019. Over the prior ten years, the April deficit has averaged -$1.7 bln. Income tax collected from individuals was up +4.0% from the same month in 2025, from corporates up +4.5%. GST collections, which we noted fell rather heavily in March, bounced back to recent levels in April to be +19.5% higher than year ago levels.

BUDGET TRANSPARENCY
In follow-up to the Budget 2026 release, we have added drill-down data on the social welfare budget allocation (of $48.4 bln for fiscal year 2026/27. Social welfare accounts for more than a quarter of all government spending, and within this more than 55% is budgeted to be spent on NZ Superannuation payments. That amounts to more than $26 bln, and this cost alone is more than every other budget category, than Health. One dollar in every $7 spent by the government is now used to make these welfare payments, far and away the largest single income transfer in the Budget. We will be releasing drilldown analysis for Health soon, followed by Education, Finance, and Housing & Urban Development.

NZX50 LOWER YET AGAIN
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is down -0.4% so far today, with a weekly fall now of -1.2%. It is down -3.3% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up only +1.6%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is down -0.6% from yesterday. Kathmandu, Vista, AirNZ and Napier Port rise as Fletchers, a2 Milk, Serko, and Spark retreat.

SBS BANK CONSOLIDATES
SBS Bank released its year end accounts showing assets of $6.7 bln (up +0.7%) but lower profits as it spent heavily to upgrade its core banking system. When complete they see it providing 'faster, easier, and more secure' banking. In the meantime, their overall lending actually contracted. SBS is a combination of its bank, FinanceNow, Southsure Assurance, SBS Wealth, and The Warehouse Financial Services, among others.

HOT PROPERTY
In the most well-supported NZGB tender since August 2025, today's one drew 90 bids worth $2.25 bln for the two maturities available worth $450 mln. The May 2031 $225 mln attracted $1.4 bln in bids and that drove th eyield down to 4.03% from 4.23% two week ago.

'TRADING WIDE'
BNZ is in the market for $1 bln in wholesale funding, $500 mln in a 5yr bond, plus $500 mln for a 5 year Floating Rate Note. In this context, Fitch, who isn't rating this debt, has some interesting observations. The said "While we don’t have formal coverage of New Zealand banks, and most credit investors expect a spread differential to Australian banks, we would argue that NZ banks should trade broadly flat to Australian banks, as not only are many credit metrics better than their parent banks (NIM, credit costs), they have an extra layer of protection through RBNZ before taking into account the strength of their parent, and combined oversight by APRA; in general, the NZ subs have navigated the challenging NZ macro environment very well; in that context, New Zealand banks are trading wide."

SWAP RATES DIP
Wholesale swap rates will probably be lower today by a modest -2 or -3 bps. 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 2.65% on Wednesday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is up +1 bp at 4.91%. The China 10 year bond rate is also up +1 bp at 1.72%. The Japanese 10 year bond is up +6 bps at 2.65% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.56%, down -3 bps from this time yesterday. (The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Wednesday rate unchanged at 4.55%.) The UST 10yr yield is up +2 bps at 4.48%.

EQUITIES LOWER
The local equity market is down -0.4% from yesterday at this time. Believe it or not, that is the least of the markets we follow. The ASX200 is down -1.2% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is down -1.9% in a weak showing at its open. Hong Kong is down -1.3% but Shanghai is only down -0.2% at its open today. Singapore is down -1.3%. Wall Street ended its Wednesday trade with the S&P500 down -0.7%.

OIL PRICES MARGINALLY HIGHER
American oil prices are up +50 USc with the WTI benchmark now just under US$95/bbl, and the international Brent price is now just under US$96.50/bbl.

CARBON PRICE FIRMISH IN RANGE
There have been a lot of trades today on the secondary market, and the price is up +$1 at $52/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD SLIGHTLY SOFTER
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$5 at US$4474/oz. Silver is now just over US$73.50/oz and down -US$1.50.

NZD WEAKER
The Kiwi dollar is down -60 bps from this time yesterday against the USD, now just on 58.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -30 bps at 82.4 AUc. Against the euro we are down -40 bps at 50.6 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 62.2 and down -60 bps from this time yesterday.

BITCOIN TUMBLES FURTHER
The bitcoin price is now at US$63,896 and down another -3.9% from this time yesterday. The last time it was this low was in October 2024. Volatility has been very high at just on +/- 5.0%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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