A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; some rate cuts, UDC sold, house price signals mixed, clear polling, swaps unchanged, NZD firm, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes announced today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Both the Nelson Building Society and the Wairarapa Building Society cut term deposit rates today. Rabobank cut savings account rates.

FINALLY SOLD, BUT AT A LOSS
After a famously failed attempt (to HNA for $660 mln), ANZ has finally off-loaded subsidiary UDC Finance to Japan's Shinsei Bank, and for an impressive $762 mln. Shinsei Bank operates both asset financing and vehicle and consumer lending businesses similar to those of UDC within Japan and internationally. ANZ said it will book a -$73 mln loss "post release of goodwill". "The sale provides ~AUD$439 million (~10bps) of Level 2 Group CETI capital at settlement. The sale will also release more than NZ$2 billion of funding provided by ANZ New Zealand further strengthening ist balance sheet position."

BOX-TICKING IN LOCKDOWN
Residential building consents were down -17% in April compared to April last year. This is far less I expected. Councils clearly kept on issuing consents during lockdown. Building consents for commercial buildings dropped much more sharply in April than consents for new dwellings.

WITH JUST 109 DAYS TO GO ...
According to a RoyMorgan poll out today, support for the Labour Party has soared to 56.5%. Labour Party support is up 1.5% since April and up a stunning 16.5% since January 2020 when the two major parties were locked at 40% support each, they say. Support for the National Party is down to just 26.5%, the Greens are on 7%, ACT is up to 3.5%, while NZ First is down to 2.5 support. The big fall for National happened in March, but it has slipped since. Most pundits expect things will close back up as the campaign heats up. But expect desperate positioning from NZ First.

ASB LAUNCHES 'COMPASSIONATE CARE'
ASB has launched “compassionate care” in partnership with insurer AIA, which will cover a customer’s home loan interest costs for about a year if one of the home loan borrowers passes away. The bank says about 160,000 customers are automatically eligible. ASB says compassionate care comes at no cost to the customer, but cautions it’s not a substitute for insurance.

TERMS OF TRADE SLIP FROM RECORD HIGH
The merchandise terms of trade fell just -0.7% in the March 2020 quarter, the first fall since the December 2018 quarter. The drop reflects a slip in total export prices (down -0.2%) and a small rise in import prices (up +0.5%) in the March 2020 quarter.

OPTIMIST NOW?
Westpac economists say some recent data is tentatively suggesting that the economic situation may not be quite as severe as they had been predicting.

PRICE SIGNALS "VERY MIXED"
New listings on realestate.co.nz bounced back strongly in May but the national average asking price fell sharply.

LOCAL UPDATE
There were zero new Covid-19 cases again today in New Zealand, so now only one person is left with it in the whole country. We are now at eleven days with zero new cases.

AUSTRALIA UPDATE
In Australia, there have been 7221 cases (+17 since this morning), 102 deaths (-1) and a recovery rate of just under 92% (unchanged). 21 people are in hospital there (+1) with 4 in ICU (+1). There are now 505 active cases in Australia (+23).

GLOBAL UPDATE
The latest compilation of Covid-19 data is here. The global tally is now 6,265,500 which is rising at a faster pace than recently. American cases rose by +14,000 since this morning. Small rises in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are worth watching. The significant acceleration of outbreaks in both Texas and California will be worrying officials there too. US deaths now exceed 105,000. Global deaths now exceed 373,000.

EQUITY MARKET UPDATES
Despite the social turmoil in the US, the S&P500 rose +0.4% in overnight trade. European markets were very mixed, with overnight results ranging from -1.7% (Frankfurt) to +2.0% (Euronext Brussels). Today, Shanghai has opened flat, Hong Kong is up +0.5%, and Tokyo is up +0.8% in early trade. The ASX200 is also flat at midday while the NZX50 Capital Index is up +0.8%.

SWAP RATES UPDATE
Swap rates may have firmed a small amount today. We don't have wholesale swap rates movement details yet but we will update this later in the day if they show a significant movement. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged at 0.26%. The Aussie Govt 10yr is little-changed at 0.90%. The China Govt 10yr is up +2 bps at 2.74%. The NZ Govt 10yr yield is unchanged at 0.83%. The UST 10yr has slipped -1 bps to 0.65%

NZ DOLLAR HOLDS FIRM
The Kiwi dollar has slipped from this morning's open to just on 62.8 USc. Against the Aussie we are also holding at 92.6 AUc. Against the euro we are firmer at 56.4 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is little-changed at 67.9.

BITCOIN RISING
The price of Bitcoin is up again, breaching US$10,000. It is up +5.1% from this morning to US$10,058. All cryptos are rising as US cities burn. 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 ».