A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; Co-op Bank cuts rates, soft building consent growth, weak auction markets, swaps stable, NZD stable, & more

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
The Cooperative Bank has cut -10 bps from its 6 month, 12 month and 18 month home loan rate card taking all three down to 3.79%. The 6 month rate is market-leading. They also cut all other term by -5 or -6 bps and that takes their three year carded offer below 4%, matching Kiwibank and SBS Bank.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
The Cooperative Bank has trimmed -5 and -10 bps from their TD rate card. They have also cut -10 bps from the Step Saver bonus saver rate, now at 1.90%.

WITHOUT AUCKLAND GROWTH, THERE WOULD BE NO GROWTH
New dwelling consents hit a record high in Auckland but are lagging behind in many other regions. Most of the growth in consent numbers is coming from non-house dwellings, especially in Auckland, indicating an ongoing push towards higher-density accommodation. In fact, nationally, consents for houses in June fell -4.5% from the same month a year ago. But consents for apartments rose +52% and for townhouses, almost +6%. On a full year basis the rise in apartments isn't so pronounced or lumpy, but the trend to higher density is still pronounced. But without the Auckland growth, there would be no growth year-on-year.

OTHER CONSENTS UNDERWHELMING
Building consents for non-residential buildings were relatively weak. Some analysts were surprised by this. Infometrics notes: "Weak business confidence and low investment intentions are sapping strength from private sector consents, and we predict that declines in private sector work will be the dominant trend in overall activity during 2020 and 2021."

WEAK AUCTION MARKET CONTINUES
At between 20% and 31%, auction numbers remained on their winter lows at Barfoot & Thompson's latest auctions.

TIMELY ACTION
S&P Global Ratings likes the FE Investments equity issue. It says this share issue by FE Investment Group (FEIG) should strengthen the group's capital base and therefore moderate the immediate downside for the creditworthiness of FE Investments, their main operating entity. If it completes, S&P indicates it will unwind the 'negative outlook' it issued recently. FEI has an S&P credit rating of 'B'.

TAX SEASON UPDATE
The IRD is saying it has refunded almost $600 mln in excess withholding taxation back into taxpayers’ bank accounts in the past two months, after the first season of automatic tax assessments. This season has seen completed assessments for 2,579,172 customers since the end of May, which includes 1,330,484 refunds (52%), 270,952 more tax to pay (11%), 882,682 taxpayers who have a refund of less than one dollar or who have had a small bill written off (34%), and 95,054 taxpayers either paid exactly the right amount of tax over the year or had no income over the period (3%).

A BETTER MOOD
Today, Asian equity markets have opened firmer. In early trading, Shanghai is up +0.5%, Hong Kong is up +0.3%, and Tokyo is up +0.6%. They are building on the ASX200 and NZX50 which are both up +0.4%. Wall Street finished is trading session down -0.2% (S&P500).

PAINFUL RETREAT
In Australia, they too released June building consent data and it came in very weak and weaker than expected. For June 2019 they came in a startling -29% lower than the same month in 2018. For the year to June, the decline was a -19% decline. In anyone's language, this is a painful drop. It is data that caused the Aussie dollar to dip, although the ASX didn't notice.

NOT WORKING OUT
In 2016, the New Plymouth District Council sold its huge Tasmanian dairy operation, Van Diemen's Land Company to a Chinese firm for about $300 mln. Things are not going well, especially for the animals involved. The new owners have been accused of extreme animal cruelty. And the promised $100 mln of new investment hasn't happened either.

SWAP RATES STOP FALLING
After yesterday's continued falls, today local swap rates hold, even rose +1 bp across the curve. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.50%. Australian swap rates are also unchanged. The Aussie Govt 10yr is stable today at 1.21%. The China Govt 10yr is similarly stable at 3.21%, while the NZ Govt 10 yr dipped back to 1.49%. The UST 10yr yield is now at 2.07%, and up +2 bps since this morning.

NZ DOLLAR STABLE
The Kiwi dollar has been stable again today, trading sideways at 66.3 USc. Against the Aussie we are still at 96 AU cents. Against the euro we are soft at 59.5 euro cents. We should also note that the UK Pound is lower with the Kiwi dollar now at 54.4 pence and its highest in 2019. That leaves the TWI-5 at 71.7.

BITCOIN SOFT
Bitcoin is now at US$9,463, a -2% decline from this time yesterday. Volatility has been a relatively low +/- 1.6%. The bitcoin price is charted in the currency set below.

This chart is animated here.