A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; consumer confidence less negative, housing investors cautious, calls for electricity reform; wool prices drop, China PMI's retreat, swaps up, NZD up, & 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
Nelson Building Society (NBS) has trimmed its 6 month fixed home loan rate to 4.99%. 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
NBS has cut its 6 and 9 month TD rates. BNZ has now added the +25 bps OCR rise to its Business First savings account which takes it up to 1.85% and among the best for these types of accounts. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

'A SHARP BOUNCE'
Latest ANZ-Roy Morgan NZ Consumer Confidence Survey shows consumer confidence lifted 8 points in July as expectations around the economic outlook improve, even if they are still net negative.

A SMALL DIP
Another ANZ report says the housing market softened mid-year with investors particularly cautious. But they are sticking with their 2026 forecast house prices will dip only -2%.

TURNAROUND?
After a challenging few years, there are growing signs that confidence is returning to online retail. And local retailers are well positioned to benefit. NZ Post reports that in the first half of 2026, online spending grew 12% year-on-year, reaching more than $6 billion, shoppers made 50+ million online transactions, up 10% year-on-year, online retail grew six times faster than instore retail, 79% of all online spending stayed with New Zealand retailers, and Kiwi shoppers made 7 million more online purchases than they did two years ago.

REFORMED FOR SOE GOUGING
Household electricity costs are up +177% since the 1999 'reforms', nearly twice the rate of inflation. That is according to Consumer NZ who is calling for changes to the electricity market with a redesign of the electricity system around customers. It is one thing to extract pricing 'rent' from consumers, but because producers pay even more, it just makes our industry less attractive to operate here. Did we mention that most of the big gentailers are Government-controlled? It is a fix politicians have all the power to implement. And who knows what data centers are going to do with demand and pricing under the current markets structure?

SHARP DROP AGAIN
PGG Wrightson is reporting a sharp fall in all wool prices this week. The crossbred market came under significant pressure. Exporters have struggled to secure new sales following the elevated buying levels seen at the end of the season in June. Although the market has eased considerably, the underlying fundamentals of reduced wool supply remain unchanged. As pre-lamb shearing volumes begin to ease over the coming weeks, tighter supply is expected to support the market, although price volatility is likely to continue they say.

TRANSPARENCY REJECTED
We are ending our tracking of livestock schedule prices, by processor. With the arrival of Dawn Meats at Alliance, they are not a fan of transparency. They mirror AFFCO who have hidden their offers for a long time. And now Silver Fern Farms has caught the same opaque bug. That leaves the value of our open and free reporting bereft of data from major processors so we can't continue, ending a two decade tracking effort. We will continue to report trends in these markets however from sources that won't allow us to attribute the data.

MOLESWORTH STATION OPERATOR SELECTED
DOC has selected Ngai Tahu Farming to be the operator of the iconic high country farm, Molesworth Station. They have won it from state-owned Landcorp/Pamu Farms.

GROWING SLIGHTLY SLOWER
Bank mortgage books rose less than +$1.5 bln in June from May, up +5.3% from a year ago. But that was less than the +$1.7 bln rise in June 2025. Still bank mortgages cracked the $400 bln level in June for the first time. (Only $5.1 bln is in the non-bank sector and they are not growing at all. That sector peaked at $8.5 bln in 2007, or $6.3 bln at the end of 2023. It has been downhill for them ever since.)

HOUSEHOLD DEPOSITS DOMINATE BANK FUNDING
The bank deposit base stayed high & stable at $496 bln in June, of which households held $275.4 bln, a record high, and at 55% of all deposits, also a record high. These household deposits rose almost +$2.4 bln in June from May, split between transaction accounts (+$1.0 bln) and term deposits (+$1.6 bln). Balances in savings accounts dipped slightly.

VERY MODEST WELCOME
The Depositor Compensation Scheme started on July 1, 2025. That covered registered non-bank deposit taking finance companies. But it hasn't delivered much of a rise in their deposit base. As at the end of June 2025, these NBDT finance companies had funding liabilities of $950 mln. As at June 2026 these are now $979 mln, so a +3.0% growth in a year. Maybe savers started moving that way a year earlier because this funding balance was $794 mln in June 2024. All the same, there is no apparent rush to use CDS-covered NBDT finance companies.

NZX50 FIRMISH
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index was up +0.3% today, and also up +0.3% for the past 5 trading sessions. It is up +2.9% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +7.7%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +0.2% so far today. There have been 54 gainers led by Tourism Holdings, Kathmandu, Stride Property and Oceania. There have been 26 decliners led by Synlait Milk, Fletchers, a2 Milk and Vulcan Steel.

SLIPPING LOWER
After four months of minor expansion, the official factory PMI in China has slipped back into small contraction with a much sharper shift than was expected. After two months on minor expansion, their official services PMI also slipped back into a small contraction, also a sharper shift lower than expected. China's overall growth targets are looking less likely to be achieved the longer the year goes on. But lets not overstate these pullback signals; most countries would love to have their growth levels even at the reduced impetus. China's key issue is that new order levels are fading and exports are the key driver, not internal consumption (which is their goal). So more induced infrastructure stimulus is on the way. Also worth noting is that the private S&P Global PMIs are usually more upbeat than these official ones.

HEALTHY BOUNCEBACK
Korean industrial production bounced back sharply in June after the minor but unexpected dip in May. The June level was +5.8% higher than a year ago, up +2.3% from May, a heartening rebound for them.

ONLY ONE PART BOUNCES BACK, THE OTHER FADES
Japanese industrial production recorded a similar recovery in June, up +4.2% from a year ago, up +1.3% for the month. But that was not matched by retail sales in Japan which took a rather large tumble, down -4.1% from the strong year-ago level, up +0.5% from May.

PPI INFLATION EMBEDDING
Australian producer prices rose +3.6% in June from a year ago, the most since early 2025 and above the anticipated +2.5% and even the 'high' Q1-2026 3.0% level. Inflation is embedding and it is a result that will focus attention by officials.

SWAP RATES RETREAT
Wholesale swap rates may have fallen today. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was up +1 bp at 2.93% on Thursday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is down -5 bps from yesterday at 4.93%. The China 10 year bond rate has fallen -2 bps to 1.70%. The Japanese 10 year bond is up +1 bp at 2.79% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.72%, and down -2 bps from this time yesterday. (The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Thursday rate up +8 bps at 4.73%.) The UST 10yr yield is down -4 bps at 4.65%.

EQUITIES MOSTLY FIRMER
The local equity market is now up only +0.1%. Meanwhile, the ASX200 is has firmed +0.3%. Tokyo however has opened up +4.4%. Hong Kong is up a minor +0.1% but Shanghai is up +0.8% at its open today. Singapore is down -1.0% at its open. Wall Street was up +1.7% in Thursday trade on the S&P500 with the Nasdaq up +2.8%.

OIL PRICES RETREAT
American oil prices have fallen -US$1 from this time yesterday with the WTI benchmark is now just on US$82.50/bbl, while the international Brent price is just under US$86/bbl and down -US$3.50.

CARBON PRICE ...
There have been a few good sized trades so far today and the price has firmed slightly to $55.90/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trade, gold is up just +US$5/oz from this time yesterday, now at US$4074/oz. Silver is now just on US$58.50/oz and up +US$1 from yesterday.

NZD RISES
The Kiwi dollar is +60 bps firmer against the USD from this time yesterday, now at just on 58.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are up +10 bps at 83.6 AUc. Against the euro we are up +25 bps at 51 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 62.5 and up +50 bps.

BITCOIN HOLDS
The bitcoin price is now at US$64,219 and up +0.2% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been modest at just on +/- 1.1%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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