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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; some rates trimmed & equalised, business confidence dismal, Fitch positive, mortgage brokers under pressure, swaps lower, NZD slides, & more

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; some rates trimmed & equalised, business confidence dismal, Fitch positive, mortgage brokers under pressure, swaps lower, NZD slides, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
The NZCU Baywide group (which includes NZCU Central, NZCU South and Aotearoa CU) have made wide term deposit and savings rate cuts of between -10 and -25 bps, and equalised their rate offerings between brands.

A DEEPER HOLE
For July, ANZ described business confidence as 'grim'. It got worse in August and now its 'dismal'. The ANZ Business Outlook Survey says there's 'nothing good to say' about business confidence as it hits the lowest level in over 11 years while increasing numbers of firms intend to reduce staff numbers. Federated Farmers expects financial pressures on farmers are likely to intensify, and "mandatory debt mediation will be an important tool in the years ahead".

A MORE POSITIVE LT OUTLOOK
Although they are bearish on the valuation of the NZD in the short term, ratings agency Fitch says "over the longer term, we expect modest upside pressure on the New Zealand dollar due to the current undervaluation of the currency and our expectations for growth to outperform relative to the US".

RABOBANK NZ APPOINTS GM FOR COUNTRY BANKING
Rabobank New Zealand has appointed Bruce Weir as its general manager for country banking, responsible for the rural lender’s client-facing agribusiness teams across NZ. Weir has most recently been Rabobank's interim general manager of country banking and has previously worked for ASB.

AUSSIE DAIRY DEMISE
The tough dairy conditions in Australia is starting to result in some brutal business decisions. Nestle is shutting its Tongola, Vic. factory. It isn't the first to close, and it won't be the last.

DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR CLIENTS
Regulator ASIC has upped the pressure on Australian mortgage brokers and other home loan providers by requiring them to offer their clients the "best" home loan, with a competitive interest rate. The income effect on the broker shouldn't be the criteria.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates fell today by -2 bps across the board. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.19%. Australian swap rates are little-changed. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down -1 bp at 0.87%. The China Govt 10yr is up +1 bp to 3.08%, while the NZ Govt 10 yr unchanged at this time at 1.09%. The UST 10yr yield is down -2 bps to 1.45%.

NZ DOLLAR SLIDES
The Kiwi dollar dropped -0.2 pts on the weakening business confidence data, now lower at 63.1 USc and that is a -½c drop from this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are down to 93.9 AU cents. Against the euro we are softer at 57 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 down to 68.5.

BITCOIN DROPS
Bitcoin is tumbling today and is -US$440 lower than at this time yesterday, down -4.4% to US$10,115. The bitcoin price is charted in the currency set below.

This chart is animated here.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: CoinDesk

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14 Comments

Maybe businesses have realised that the more they bitch in surveys, they lower interest rates go. Why else would they keep lying about reducing staff?

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What makes you think they are lying? We certainly have an uptick in serious inquiries from companies looking at buying automation solutions to "increase operational efficiency" ie, reduce head countrequired to do the job. You could be an optimist and say they are going to keep all the staff and move them to new roles... but if you believe that I've got a nice bridge I can sell you for a very reasonable price..

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I guess the fact that they have been claiming to be culling staff for 2 years now and yet unemployment has gone down. They have either been lying, wrong, or very slow. And I think they may just talk us into a recession.

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I have had a similar experience lately. I was brought on to the analytics team at my employer's to work on an expansion project. However, somewhere along the lines, the focus changed to cost-cutting machine learning techniques.
There'll be lots of media coverage around the soon-to-happen public announcement on staff retrenchments.

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Any decent business should be looking to cut expenses I imagine. So far automation has not led to unemployment - do you think this is about to change?

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Kyle bass talks to Steve Bannon, worth watching just to see how the USA is thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=280&v=qH5QzuzD01A

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Sobering interview.
$45 trillion of assets (loans and derivatives) put onto Chinese banks since 2008? And we don't think 'they' have a problem? Err...'we' do....

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BW. - more unsettling info about the state of chinese banks in this Real Vision Finance interview with Kyle Bass

https://youtu.be/4cwXifDaCjE

At least 45% of the loans in chinese banks are bad.

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It looks like it was done in one take o.0

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Yes AndrewJ I mentioned that interview the other day... well worth watching. As is this one
https://youtu.be/4cwXifDaCjE

Some frightening facts about China!

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Yee ha. Robbo's recession is a coming.

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"Chinese military vehicles have been seen moving across the border into Hong Kong"

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