Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
None today.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank has cut TD rates again for eight, nine and twelve month terms. HSBC has cut most of its term deposit rates again. HSBC has also cut its SmartSaver rate by -45 bps to 0.65%. NZCU Baywide also cut a range of TD rates today.
FMA ISSUES AML WARNING TO TIGER BROKERS
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has issued a formal anti-money laundering (AML) warning to NZX-accredited broker Tiger Brokers (NZ) Ltd for failing to have adequate AML protections in place. The FMA says it has also privately warned six other businesses for their AML practices, mainly due to late auditing of their systems and controls. The FMA says there are reasonable grounds to believe Tiger Brokers has contravened the law, and it must prepare and submit a plan to the FMA before April 17 detailing how and when it will amend the issues to become compliant. It will then have until September 30 to complete these actions or face enforcement action.
USED IMPORT SALES DIVE
Total used car registrations suffered a -28% drop year-on-year in March, with used small car registrations down -27% and used large car registrations down -28%. But these are less than the -36% drop for new cars which suffered an almost complete drying up of rental car demand.
DOWN, BUT NOT OUT
The ANZ World Commodity Price Index fell another -2.1% in March. The index has now fallen -8.3% in the past four months, but relative to other global commodities, that’s not too bad. In local currency terms the index actually lifted +3.3% due to the sharp fall in the NZD.
COUNCIL BONDS TOO?
The RBNZ will start buying local government bonds as soon as this week in a groundbreaking step to get them through heightened spending obligations and to calm financial markets.
MONEY & INVESTMENT IN A CRISIS
Authorised financial adviser Martin Hawes is running free financial webinars. The next is tomorrow at 4pm. This is not a commercial event and there is no 'sponsor'. You can sign up here. It is on on the topic of Investing in Retirement.
BIFURCATION
The NZX50 Capital Index has opened the week -2.2% lower. The ASX200 is up +3.4%. The NZ selldown is being led by Kiwi Property, Fletchers and Meridien. The Aussie rise is being led by an expected policy shift that the country will just live with the disease and deaths and release the lockdowns to get their economy going again. (Surrender?) The US looks like it may also pivot to accepting it can't beat the disease because the economic cost is too high. If we stay with an elimination strategy that prioritises health, our borders may be closed for a long time yet. Tokyo and Hong Kong are up sharply in early trade. Shanghai is on holiday (Ching Ming Festival).
LOCAL UPDATE
There are now 1106 Covid-19 cases identified in New Zealand, with another +67 new cases today and lower than the +89 increase yesterday. The number of clusters has risen to 10. Only one person has died here. There are still only 13 people in hospital with the disease today, three in ICU with two of them critical. Also see this.
LOCAL ECONOMIC IMPACT
GDPLive models have now started to picked up this downturn. The economy is already in contraction at this stage, with the models detecting that there is already a -1.21% downturn resulting from the last week of the national shutdown. This number is increasing for each day of the shutdown and will reach double-digits over the next couple of weeks, according to the Massey Albany modelers.
GLOBAL UPDATE
Worldwide, the latest compilation of Covid-19 data is here. The global tally is now 1,274,000 and up +71,000 from the 1,203,000 we had this time yesterday. 26% of all cases globally are in the US and they are up +25,100 in one day to 337,300. Five countries now have more cases than China. Australia has now over 5700 cases, and 35 deaths. Most advanced countries are now showing slowing increase numbers apart from the US, the UK, Turkey and Canada. Global deaths now exceed 70,000. Death rates in Europe are frightening. Death rates in Asia are modest by comparison.
SWAP RATES UPDATE
We don't have wholesale swap rates movement details today yet. We will update this later in the day. The 90-day bank bill rate slipped -1 bp to 0.48%. The Aussie Govt 10yr is little-changed at 0.76%. The China Govt 10yr is down -6 bps at 2.62%. The NZ Govt 10 yr yield is unchanged at 1.04%. The UST 10yr is up +3 bps today to just under 0.63%.
NZ DOLLAR STABLE
The Kiwi dollar is little-changed from this morning at 58.8 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 97.6 AUc. Against the euro we are also unchanged at 54.3 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is still at 65.7.
BITCOIN HOLDS
The price of Bitcoin is also little-changed at US$6,849, a very slight firming. The bitcoin price is charted in the currency set below.
This soil moisture chart is animated here.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».

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