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 ».
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64 Comments
they have an outbreak in Melbourne in one of the isolation hotels that they think spread to two other sites a school and a aged care facility.
so no travel bubble with Australia any time soon.
more likely we can have a travel bubble with the covid free islands, somewhere warm to travel for the winter
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/ten-new-coronavirus-cases-as-a…
This whole virus thing reminded me of my Police time sheets. When year end was close the area commander would decide what he wanted the stats to show for the next year and all personnel to include or exclude that relevant codes from their timesheets. I've seen the same happen with Whooping Cough epidemics in NZ, easy you just call it the 90 day cough and don't record it at all. Happened last winter, and in 1996 also.
Went to a local supermarket in Melbourne. It was evening. Not a lot of shoppers. But there were long queues at the the 2 touch-screen check outs manned by 2 young 16 year-olds.. Thats all they manned for in the evenings. As the queues got longer and weren't moving there was an announcement that the central warehouse head-office computer system was down. So they were unable to process the business. And they no longer had the skills to do it manually. The scanners were integrated with the touch-screen terminals. Sorry people - we are dependent on power and internet and the central server. When the power goes out we are f****ed - can't take bitcoin either
I've often thought how I would do that. Obviously you could email private keys, but that is quite dangerous.
I like the idea of a holy bible, with letters and numbers highlighted in order through the book. If you have a 16 world recovery phrase you could even memorize them as a "brain wallet" - just don't forget!
goTenna is a startup exploring technology that allows users to connect with others without the internet — to send text messages to others, for example. Instead, they have formed their own “mesh network” for sending messages. The limitation is that a user needs to connect to someone close-by, within a mile, to send a transaction.
As of late last year, the goTenna device also connects to their bitcoin wallet on an Android phone that users can put bitcoin in and then use to send bitcoin transactions without an internet connection – as long as they’re able to connect to another goTenna user that has an internet connection.
so yeah.. you can downlaod the blockchain from the satelite.. but you can't really transact without the internet. Whoops.
USA’s Tiananmen Square moment today.
Peaceful protesters near White House gassed and shot with rubber bullets as Trump leaves for church not to pray but simply for a photo-op.
Trump declares he will deploy National Guard against US citizens as he promises a demonstration of "total domination".
George Flyod is just one of many instances of extreme rogue police actions.
USA ain’t seemingly no different to China?
What a face palm moment. Let us just barely scratch the surface.
1. China has no free press and all freedom of expression is limited.
2. In China you can only have a right to use land you cannot own it.
3. In China between 15-35 million Chinese were starved to death by their government (they called this event a Great Leap Forward).
4. China does not have a floating currency.
5. The Chinese government owns many businesses direct.
6. For a very ling time you could be kidnapped and held for ransom in China (happened to business colleagues of mine).
7. In China they are currently (today) running what they call 'reeducation camps' for people the government doesn't like or agree with.
8. There is no rule of law as we understand it, the judge is a party member.
9. In China freedom of association is limited.
10. In China the internet is censored.
11. In China human rights defenders are systematically subjected to monitoring, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention.
12. China is a one party state, all other parties are illegal.
13. In China ethnic minorities like the Uyghur people undergo mandatory biometrics collections.
14. In China they can forcibly remove you from your home and make you live any place else they choose.
15. In China, up until 2015, the government fined you between 3 and 6 years income for the 'crime' of having a second child.
These are just a few sample of things that are not true in the USA. The very fact you can lambaste a president without being removed from your home at night and shipped off to labour camp is a big clue that things are not 'fairly much alike'.
Yes.
Here is a detailed description of how CCP is in all elements of life. And the point of power that XI is.
https://youtu.be/xW8rNpe_c3M
Elizabeth Economy.
It is a very different place to when trade deal was inked 10 + years ago. Also we now have empirical evidence as to the strength of inked agreements.
2). What a good idea; we should do it too.
3). A low estimate for the Great leap Forward. According to Wikipedia from 23m to 55m with Dikötter saying 45m minimum.
He also asserts not just famine. "" Frank Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were beaten or tortured to death and one million to three million committed suicide. He provides some illustrative examples. In Xinyang, where over a million died in 1960, 6–7% (around 67,000) of these were beaten to death by the militias. In Daoxian county, 10% of those who died had been 'buried alive, clubbed to death or otherwise killed by party members and their militia.' In Shimen county, around 13,500 died in 1960, of these 12% were 'beaten or driven to their deaths.' In accounts documented by Yang Jisheng, people were beaten or killed for rebelling against the government, reporting the real harvest numbers, for sounding alarm, for refusing to hand over what little food they had left, for trying to flee the famine area, for begging food or as little as stealing scraps or angering officials.""
You're right and you're wrong Ralph.
You're right that NZ shouldn't slavishly hitch its wagon to either of these apparitions.
You're wrong to think the game is the same. China is proof that the one-party state is seldom benevolent. USA s proof that the libertarian ethos is built on lies and repression.
Say it ain't so.
Many years ago, I studied in the US thanks to a US government scholarship. Most of the other recipients were from China, as part of a very open and transparent effort by the US to build relationships with China. Open, transparent and honourable.
Yes folks, the USA was once open, transparent and honourable. I recall Ronald Reagan was head honcho way back then. Not a perfect world, but on where Watts and other abominations weren't far from the collective consciousness.
50 years of progress, reversed in a heartbeat!
US deaths now exceed 105,000. Global deaths now exceed 373,000
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic will haunt the US economy for a decade, wiping close to $8tn off economic growth, according to new projections released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Monday.
In a letter to lawmakers CBO director Phillip Swagel projected the virus will reduce US economic output by 3% through 2030, a loss of $7.9tn. Link
Not much respect for the efficacy of central bank LSAP programmes (QE) on display here.
National will offer NZ First a safe seat or 2. Its both parties only chance. Winston may get there , but I cant see Shane Jones winning a seat . I would think Tracey Martin would be a better bet . And I hear grass roots Greens arent too happy with the Urban academic line up for the top ten . Probably too late to do anything about that , and no alternative vote for them.
Anyone know what the greens policy on immigration is this time round? I would have thought that they would like to limit it as the main culprit for destroying the environment is humankind. I will vote green if they are for keeping the numbers down and as a result, making NZ greener and cleaner.
They have a website for policy.
Immigrants are welcome in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Immigration policies should be impartial regarding countries of origin, ethnicities, cultures, age, gender, and sexual orientation.
Priority should be given to migrants whose skills will help build a low-emissions economy that lifts living standards.
The right to live in Aotearoa New Zealand derives from te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Iwi and hapu should have opportunities to contribute to immigration policy decisions, and to the welcoming and settling of new migrants.
Te Tiriti education should be compulsory for all immigrants, at appropriate times to maximise engagement i.e. not just immediately upon arrival.
And they have a Population Policy!
We need to reduce our ecological footprint
Government actions should reduce Aotearoa New Zealand’s per capita ecological footprint by supporting practices that curb unnecessary production and consumption.
Government should research New Zealand’s ecological footprint and our ecological limits.
There is no “fixed and final” correct population for Aotearoa New Zealand
Government should research what an optimum population level could be in order to maintain environmental sustainability and an acceptable standard of living
Tangata whenua must be involved in any decisions about population.
People have a right to choose whether to become parents or not.
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