A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; no retail rate changes, labour confidence knocked, extracting value by keeping native forest, swaps stable, NZX firmish, NZD much lower, & 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
None here either. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

LABOUR MARKET CONFIDENCE KNOCKED
The Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index fell by 12.5 points to 83.1 in the June quarter. This is the lowest reading for the survey since it began in September 2004. “The loss of confidence was shared across all of the survey measures, and was seen across most regions, ages and income groups,” said Westpac's Michael Gordon. More here.

PIONEERING WAY TO UNLOCK VALUE IN EXISTING NATIVE FORESTS
BNZ and state-owned farmer Pāmu/Landcorp have developed a new way for landowners to earn revenue from existing native forests, helping improve the land and biodiversity while giving businesses a method to account for their carbon removals. Unlike other options, which require upfront capital to create a new asset that generates credits, this new model enables landowners to earn revenue from a pre-existing asset. The majority of that revenue is then reinvested to restore and improve their land.

PROFIT-SHARING
The Co-operative Bank has now returned $25 mln to its customers since introducing profit-sharing in 2013, reaching the milestone with this year’s $1.5 mln rebate paid today. (At the other end of the scale, ANZ paid $1.65 bln in fiscal 2025, and paid $1.1 bln in the first six months of fiscal 2026.)

FUEL SITUATION UPDATE
It is only marginal at this time, but the most recent fuel update has got a bit skinnier for most components. But the in-country levels are still similar to previous weeks and well above their late March/April lows.

NZX50 MARGINALLY FIRMER
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +0.2%, with a weekly rise now of +0.4%. It is down -0.2% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +7.6%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is down -0.8% so far today. Vista, a2 Milk, Oceania, and Kathmandu lift as the NZX50 advances; Vulcan Steel, F&P Healthcare, Mainfreight and Freightways retreat.

JAPAN'S FACTORY PMI EXPANDS FASTER
Japan's factories are expanding solidly and faster. They recorded a stronger rise in business activity in June, but rate of cost inflation has hit a four-year high. New orders rose their fastest since 2022.

AUSTRALIA'S FACTORY PMI EXPANDS, SERVICES NO LONGER CONTRACTING
Business activity nears stabilisation in June as the service sector improved in Australia, but new orders continue to fall, including for new export orders.

-5% LOWER VALUE, -70% LOWER PROFIT
Staying in Australia, their latest quarterly update for rural commodities notes that the gross value of agricultural production is forecast to fall by -5% to AU $98.3 bln in the 2026–27 upcoming year. They expect "average broadacre farm business profit" to fall by -70%, driven by lower revenue and higher input prices.

ANOTHER FED MEMBER MORE WORRIED ABOUT US INFLATION
The Chicago Fed boss said today the US inflation is too high and "going the wrong way". (He is presently an alternate FOMC member, but he will be a full member in 2027.)

SWAP RATES ON HOLD
Wholesale swap rates will likely be very little-changed again 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 2.71% on Monday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is down -1 bp at 4.79%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.74%. The Japanese 10 year bond is up +1 bp at 2.67% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.46%, down -1 bp from this time yesterday. (The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Monday rate up +1 bp at 4.45%.) The UST 10yr yield is also up +1 bp at 4.50%.

EQUITIES MOSTLY LOWER
The local equity market is now slightly firmer from yesterday, up +0.2%. The ASX200 is up only +0.1% however. Tokyo has opened down -0.9%. Hong Kong is also down -0.9% but Shanghai is only down -0.1% at its open today. Singapore is down -0.1%. Wall Street ended its Monday session down -0.4& and the Nasdaq was down -1.3%. If your KiwiSaver fund had an attack of FOMO and dived in with the frenzied IPO crowd recently, you won't want to look at this chart. That's a loss of US$600 bln in 'value'. (New Zealand's annual GDP is only US$257 bln / NZ$451 bln.)

OIL PRICES LOWER
American oil prices are down -US$1.50 from yesterday with the WTI benchmark now just under US$74/bbl, while the international Brent price is just under US$78/bbl.

CARBON PRICE HOLDS
There has been very little trading so far today and the price is still at $54.50/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD RETREATS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$38/oz from this yesterday and falling, now at US$4150/oz. Silver is down -US$2.50 at just on US$63/oz.

NZD RETREATS
The Kiwi dollar has retreated another -30 bps from this time yesterday against the USD, now just on 57 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 81.7 AUc. Against the euro we down -30 bps at 49.9 euro cents. This all means the TWI- is now just on 60.8 and down another -30 bps from this time yesterday. and near its lowest since November 2025.

BITCOIN LITTLE-CHANGED
The bitcoin price is now at US$64,129 and little-changed from this time yesterday (-0.1%). Volatility has been modest at just on +/- 1.4%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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