Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
China Construction Bank became the third local bank to push fixed mortgage rates below 3%, with a 2.80% one year 'special', and a 2.85% two year 'special'. They also cut their floating rate by -50 bps to 5.00% but that is not especially competitive.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
BNZ continued the trend of banks cutting TD rates by small amounts and regularly. The declines are adding up fast.
SHARP VOLUME DROP
Barfoot & Thompson's sales volumes halved in April compared to March but there's probably worse to come because many of these completed transactions were started in March. But prices only dropped slightly in the month. New listing levels were very low too.
SHARP PROFIT DROP
Westpac NZ half-year net profit tumbled -44% as loan impairments and expenses rose and income fell.
TURNBULL RETURNS
Tower Insurance has appointed New Zealander Blair Turnbull as its new CEO. Turnbull was most recently with Aviva Group in London. Prior to that, he was Executive General Manager, Wealth and Insurance at ASB Bank.
UNCHANGED
Standard & Poor's has confirmed New Zealand's sovereign credit rating as AA, with an outlook as 'Positive'. It said: "New Zealand's monetary flexibility, wealthy economy, and institutions are conducive to swift and decisive policy actions and support the ratings positive trajectory."
LOCAL UPDATE
There are 1487 Covid-19 cases identified in New Zealand, with zero new cases today on a net basis (+1 on a confirmed basis), down from +2 yesterday. Today's one was outside a confirmed cluster. Twenty people have died, unchanged from yesterday, almost all geriatric patients. There are just four people left in hospital with the disease (-4), and none are in ICU. Our recovery rate is now up over 86% and rising.
AUSTRALIA UPDATE
In Australia, there are now 6801 cases (+34 since Friday), 95 deaths (+2) and a stable recovery rate of just over 85%. 75 people are in hospital there (-8) with 28 in ICU (unchanged). The Aussies are having issues with cases at meat processing plants (+19).
GLOBAL UPDATE
The latest compilation of Covid-19 data is here. The global tally is now 3,506,700 and up +31,000 from this morning which is an unchanged level of growth. Now, just over 33% of all cases globally are in the US, which is up +15,000 since this time yesterday taking the total to 1,147,900 and the only country to exceed 1 mln cases. This is also an unchanged level of increase. US deaths now exceed 68,000. Global deaths are about to exceed 247,000. Another country we haven't mentioned before that is in trouble is Canada, and they will be the next to pass China's infection rate. Caseloads are rising there, and 3800 people have died there so far.
EQUITY UPDATE
The Aussie equities market is up +0.8%, a faint shadow of the -3.8% fall on Friday. The NZX50 Capital Index is down -0.5% near the end of trade today. Shanghai is on holiday again today. Hong Kong has returned, but is falling hard today, down -3.7% in late morning trade. Tokyo is also on holiday today and probably pleased it is. All eyes will be on New York overnight and the rush of earnings reports this week.
SWAP RATES UPDATE
Local swap rates opened the week at new record lows after sharp falls on Friday. The two year started today at 0.19% and -10 bps lower in a week. The five year at 0.33% and -13 bps lower in a week. The ten year at 0.72% and -14 bps lower in a week. We don't have wholesale swap rates movement details today yet. We will update this later in the day if they show a significant change. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged at 0.26%. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down -2 bps at 0.84%. The China Govt 10yr is unchanged at 2.52%. The NZ Govt 10 yr yield has fallen another -5 bps to just 0.57% and now well below both the equivalent Australian and American rates. The UST 10yr is unchanged from this time yesterday at 0.62%.
NZ DOLLAR SOFT
The Kiwi dollar has given up some of its recent gains, now back to 60.3 USc. But against the Aussie we are little-changed at 94.3 AUc. Against the euro we are sharply lower at 55.1 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is down to 66.2 and only a minor fall from this morning's open.
BITCOIN SLIPS
The price of Bitcoin is down -1.1% from this morning's open to US$8,751. 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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