A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; no rate changes, service sector up, log demand firm, out-and-in, positive adjustment coming, swaps and NZD hold, & 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
None here either.

FEELING MORE CHIPPER
Challenging the trend, the local service sector has come up trumps in October, above its long-run average and rising on the back of strong new order levels. This rising expansion compliments the better-than-expected factory data for October out late last week (although that is still below its long-run average). Of note, the strongest expansions are in Wellington and Canterbury.

CUSTOMERS WON'T PAY FOR LOCAL PROCESSING
Export demand for logs in November is rising along with prices, but prices are still below their 2-year average. And export demand for sawn timber remains weak. Domestic demand remains stable.

KIWIS LEAVE, MORE MIGRANTS ARRIVE
More New Zealanders are leaving the country and more non-NZ citizens are arriving. Population growth from migration is a two way street, with big increases in both long term arrivals and departures.

EQUITIES GLOOM
The positivity in the services data isn't being shared with equity markets today. Both the NZX50 (-0.5%) and the ASX200 (-0.6%) are down in early trading, and the opening bells in Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong are flat.

TEAMING WITH SCHEMERS
Buy now, pay later funder Laybuy has announced a partnership with over a dozen major retail brands, which will see the business add over 3,000 new retail locations across New Zealand, Australia and the UK. This includes a tie-up with the retail investments of Sydney private equity hotshots Alceon Group.

CHECKUP GIVES A TICK TO AUDITORS
In a new update of its rolling review of auditors and their work standards, the FMA has found that audit quality has broadly improved again but auditors continue to apply standards inconsistently. These annual reviews are part of a three-year monitoring cycle of licensed auditors. Each of the audit firms reviewed for this report have been reviewed previously and the FMA found most auditors had made improvements.

HAVE WE BEEN UNDERSELLING OUR PERFORMANCE?
Close to Christmas eve, we will get the updated Q3 GDP growth data, and BNZ is pointing out that some data revisions by Statistics NZ indicate we could be in for a positive surprise, even if it is only a one-off. It seems that input costs have been over-reported somewhat and with the new Census updates they may get scaled back a little. The result will be stronger growth and stronger productivity. At least, that is the expectation. Most of the positive revisions will be for 2017/18 however (and credited to the previous Government).

EVEN FIERCER
Hong Kong riot police threatened to use lethal force against students as they attempted to storm a local university campus just before dawn on Monday, following the most violent night in five months of unrest in the city. The PLA has "counter-terrorism" units in the City now.

MURRAY HORN NAMED CHAIRMAN OF CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK NZ
China Construction Bank (New Zealand) Ltd has named Murray Horn as its new chairman replacing Jenny Shipley. John Shewan has been acting chairman since Shipley stepped down in March. Horn is a former Secretary to the Treasury, and ex-CEO of ANZ Banking Group's NZ operations. Horn has also chaired the Risk Committee on the board of China Construction Bank Corporation (Beijing) for six years.

LOCAL SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are marginally softer today, down -1 bps across all durations. The 90-day bank bill rate is down another -2 bps at 1.22%. Australian swap rates are down about -2 bps across the curve. The Aussie Govt 10yr is unchanged at 1.16%. The China Govt 10yr is down -2 bps at 3.25%. The NZ Govt 10 yr yield is unchanged at 1.41%. The UST 10yr yield is down -1 bp from this time on Friday, drifting down to 1.83%.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDING
The Kiwi dollar has held on to its higher level and is currently just a fraction under 64 USc. Against the Aussie we are at 93.9 AUc. Against the euro we are at 57.9 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is holding at 69.2.

BITCOIN FLAT
Bitcoin is now at US$8,492 and very similar to where it opened this morning. The bitcoin price is charted in the currency set below.

This chart is animated here.