A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Wednesday; mortgage rate tweaking, bad jobs numbers, good dairy prices, positive commodity prices, strong car sales, swaps lower, NZX firmish, NZD down, & 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
BNZ adjusted some short fixed rates, falling back into line with most of its main rivals. Full details here. The Co-operative Bank cut its one year rate by -20 bps to match its larger rivals. 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
No changes to report today. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

A BIG JOBS PROBLEM
The Q3 jobless rate was expected to fall to 5.5%. Instead it rose to 5.7% is a 'surprise' outcome that has roiled financial markets. The NZD fell. NZGB bond yields fell on risk aversion. This result is an 11 year high jobless rate with 3,300 more people unemployed in three months, 13,400 more in a year. (And because it is election week from Q4-2023, 47,800 more.) For employment levels, there was a loss of jobs of -10,000 in the past quarter, a gain of +13,400 from a year ago, but a massive -53,800 loss from Q4-2023. No-one is impressed by this outcome, least of all financial markets.

DAIRY PRICES RISE AGAIN
There was a full dairy auction overnight delivering a good +2.95% overall rise in prices in USD, up +4.0% in NZD terms and that is the strongest result since March. It is all built on the powders where SMP rise +3.1% and WMP was up +5.9%. Also cheddar recovered +8.6% and mozzarella was up +5.8%. But the other milk fats were all much weaker. with butter down -4.7%. The overall gain justifies Fonterra's recent hike in its farmgate payout price. You can see all the payout history and forecasts here.

COWS & TREES GIVE THE GAINS
The ANZ World Commodity Price Index rose +0.6% in October from September, with higher dairy and forestry prices driving the result. The overall index is up another +2.0% from a year ago when it was up +4.4% at that time. The NZD Commodity Price Index rose by +2.5% over the past month. The NZD weakened in October, with the decline accentuated by the RBNZ’s surprise decision to leave interest rates unchanged in late October, so it is up +3.4% from a year ago.

STRONG CAR SALES
EVs and hybrids grab near-record share of new cars sold in a month of robust sales, boosted by strong rental car buying. There were 11,833 new cars sold in the month plus 8283 used imports.

NZX50 DIPS FURTHER
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index was up +0.4% today. From a week ago it is now up +0.6%. From six months ago it is up +5.1%. From a year ago it is up only +1.2% now. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +1.1% so far today. There are 36 gainers led by Vector, Freightways, Precinct and The Warehouse. There are 38 decliners led by AirNZ, Synlait, Summerset. Genesis and Scales.

A HIKE IN AUSTRALIA
In Australia, their fight against inflation is proving to be unusually ineffective so far using monetary policy levers. Yesterday the RBA delivered the expected +25 bps hike taking their policy rate to 4.85%, a high among almost all developed countries. But there were a few unexpected signals, the most obvious being the split vote where a minority of members wanted to hold. That, and some other technical indicators brought some financial market reactions, including the AUD easing, and Australian government bond yields dipping modestly. Most observers think the RBA will pause its hiking at its next December 8 meeting.

AUSSIE HOUSEHOLDS SPEND FREELY
Household sending in Australia in September was up +6.8% from a year ago and maintaining the fast expansion in the prior six months in a better than expected outcome. It was largely led by rises in Victoria and Western Australia. The overall result is far higher than their 4.3% CPI in the same year.

SWAP RATES DROP
Wholesale swap rates will likely be sharply lower today after the awful jobs data, maybe down as much as -10 bps. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The RBNZ 90 day rate was down -1 bp at 3.14% on Tuesday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is down -6 bps at 5.08%. The China 10 year bond rate is now at just under 1.60% and down -1 bps. The Japanese 10 year bond is unchanged at 2.78%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.83% and down -9 bps from yesterday. (The RBNZ 10 year rate is 'prior day' and was down -3 bps at 4.88% on Tuesday.) And the UST 10yr yield is now at 4.90% and down -1 bp from yesterday at this time.

EQUITIES MIXED
The NZX50 has firmed +0.2% so far today. The ASX200 has opened down -0.3%. Tokyo is back from a day off and down a sharp -3.1%. The KOSPI is down -1.8% at its open. Hong Kong is down -0.3% in early Wednesday trade while Shanghai is down -0.1%. Singapore is also down a sharp -1.2% in early Wednesday trade. Wall Street was up +0.4% in Tuesday trade on the S&P500 while the Nasdaq was up +0.8%.

OIL DIPS
American oil prices have fallen -$1 with the WTI benchmark now at just over US$95.50/bbl\, while the international Brent price is also lower by -US$1 just over US$103.50/bbl.

CARBON PRICE STAYS DOWN
There has been some minor trading reported today but the price is little-changed at $48.50/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trade, gold has risen +US$18 from yesterday, now at US$3962/oz. Silver is down -50 USc at just on US$50/oz.

NZD HOLDS LOWER
The Kiwi dollar is down -10 bps from this morning at just on 56 USc. Against the Aussie we up +20 bps at just under 80.4 AUc. Against the euro we are down -20 bps at 49.9 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 59.8 and unchanged from yesterday.

BITCOIN HOLDS
The bitcoin price is now at US$76,881 and very little-changed from yesterday. Volatility has remained modest at just over +/- 1.1%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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