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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; TSB cuts mortgage rates, Barfoots sales volumes solid, FMA frustrated, another huge Govt bond tender, swaps steepen and rise, NZD rises, & more

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; TSB cuts mortgage rates, Barfoots sales volumes solid, FMA frustrated, another huge Govt bond tender, swaps steepen and rise, NZD rises, & more
ID 22702269 © Daniaphoto | Dreamstime.com

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
TSB has cut fixed mortgage rates for 6 months, one year (to an equal market low) and 18 months. (And of course they are still running their Price Match Promise with the carded rates from the big four Aussie banks.)

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes here today - yet.

RISING VOLUMES
Barfoot & Thompson sold more homes in June than it did in June last year as Auckland property market recovers from lockdown. Selling prices are stable, both median (minor slip) and average (minor rise).

BRIDGES VERSUS PETERS
National Party leader Todd Muller has unveiled a minor reshuffle of his shadow cabinet. Simon Bridges, the man Muller deposed as leader, replaces Gerry Brownlee as foreign affairs spokesman and is ranked 17th. Bridges will shadow his old sparring partner, Winston Peters. Shane Reti rises to number 13, in place of the departing Paula Bennett, taking on the role of associate drug reform spokesman. And deputy leader Nikki Kaye takes on the women portfolio. Amy Adams will take the portfolio of Drug Reform. She will work with Shane Reti in this area.

FMA FRUSTRATED
FMA's inability to have a say in the AMP Life sale prompts a push for a law change requiring it, as the conduct regulator, to be consulted on mergers/acquisitions.

KEEN BIDDERS
Treasury offered $800 mln in two nominal bond tenders today and got offered $2.086 bln for them. The 43 winning bids (of 126 submitted) won the April 2025 bond at 0.45% pa yield (an increase from last time) and the April 2031 bond at 0.98% pa yield (a decrease). They also offered a tiny $50 mln inflation indexed bond April 2040 which was won at 0.48% pa plus CPI.

A SENIOR WESTPAC APPOINTMENT
Philip Houghton-Brown has been appointed as "Head of Investment Solutions" at BT Funds Management NZ, which is the investment arm of Westpac NZ. He is well-traveled, having held senior roles at Mercer, OnePath NZ/ING NZ and AMP Asset Management.

POWERHOUSE TRADE RESULT
Australia posted an +AU$8 bln trade surplus in May continuing and building of its growing trade wins. For the year to May, the merchandise trade surplus is now up to +AU$77 bln and a new record. But within that, exports are holding at +AU$386 bln per year (+4.8%) while imports are weaker, at -AU$313 bln per year (-2.6%). Alone, May imports were down more than -12%.

INVESTORS CHOOSE SHORT TERM MONEY OVER LONG TERM FREEDOMS
China's takeover of Hong Kong is being described as "chilling" and is attracting international condemnation. But not only does Beijing not care, the Hong Kong stock market seems not to either.

EQUITY MARKET UPDATES
The S&P500 ended its Wall Street session up another +0.5% with a late dip. Shanghai has opened up +1.1%. Hong Kong has opened up +1.6%. Tokyo has opened up +0.7%. The ASX200 is up +1.1% in early afternoon. The NZX50 Capital Index is up +0.6%.

SWAP RATES UPDATE
Swap rates probably rose slightly and steepened today. We don't have final 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 up +1 bp at 0.31%. The Aussie Govt 10yr is up +2 bps at 0.94%. The China Govt 10yr is up 1 bp at 2.89%. The NZ Govt 10yr yield is up +7 bps at 1.00%. The UST 10yr is unchanged at 0.68%.

NZ DOLLAR STILL FIRM
The Kiwi dollar is still rising, now at 64.9 USc. Against the Aussie we are also firmish at 93.8 AUc. Against the euro we are up at 57.7 euro cents. And that means the TWI-5 is now up over 69.7.

BITCOIN FIRMER
The price of Bitcoin is marginally firmer although all of that happened overnight. It is now at US$9,254 and up +1.5% since this time yesterday. 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 ».

Daily exchange rates

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End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

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38 Comments

The Green proposed Wealth Tax means 1mill on TD owes 10K tax pa? .....

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As I understand it, the tax is on total wealth and is at 1% for amounts between 1 and 2 million , and at 2 percent over 2 million. The first million would not be taxed. But its much simpler to not buy into proposals and treat them with the lack of response they deserve.

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"Barfoot & Thompson sold more homes in June than it did in June last year as Auckland property market recovers from lockdown. Selling prices are stable, both median (minor slip) and average (minor rise)."

Per the raw data in their own sales report BnT have double counted sales in April and June of this year at 39 Beach Road.

On that basis it seems the narrative is possibly inaccurate.

https://www.barfoot.co.nz/market-reports/2020/june/full-list-of-residen…

https://www.barfoot.co.nz/market-reports/2020/april/full-list-of-reside…

Edit

These apartment sales were also included in the Sept 2016 sales report. They have been reported not twice but thrice !

https://www.barfoot.co.nz/market-reports/2016/september/full-list-of-re…

One apartment is also being listed as a Ray White sale in May...

https://rwcityapartments.co.nz/properties/sold-residential/auckland-cit…

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Could it have sold twice?

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All of them ? there are many.

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Anywhere else in the world, I'd say "unlikely." In Auckland, New Zealand... Anything is possible when it comes to buying and selling houses there.

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Oh dear. Padding the numbers..

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No. B&T wouldn't do that. Would they?

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/30/australia-to-acq…

Please OZ, do not bring wars to the southern pacific.

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Who will they fight?
Too many well armed foes here

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Given Chinas recent skirmish with India it seems Pooh is more likely to start a war than any other global leader at the moment.

The CCP are however best at confronting unarmed students. They have a history of shooting, pepper spraying, water cannoning them.

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Russia too close in the map I just added above sporting lethal tactical hardware.

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They do have chemical -pandemic -warfare at its disposal. This must give them a boost to its armoury unless they accidentally turn it on themselves which has happened in the past.

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Don't forget the running over of these students by tanks.

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kind of sounds like trump tear gassing non violent protesters so he can hold up a bible. Why he interested in a bible is beyond me, he has no faith, but...whatever.

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How can he jail these kids for life. Pooh must be the most inhumane leader of our time. He obviously wants a war with the rest of the world as he believes he has weakened it with his pandemic. It seems likely after reading an article in the Sydney Morning Herald who also have extended a hand in taking residents. There is 100 000 aussies there but it seems they want to take the same number as the UK.
Winston is going to stuff up our trade arrangement anyway, if he hasn't already. If so, his party will be Covid to all the other political parties in NZ.

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Then back off, China!

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Ha! The only reason they are looking at more military hardware is because YOUR leaders are getting more aggressive

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@ Xing Say this to your Communist party. Because CCP is famous for grabbing land, ports, bullying small nations, spreading Virus and then buy stocks of all major companies. But we New Zealanders are too strong, stay away from us.

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Xing is doing a fine job of creating anti China feeling by his statement.

He is forcing to start #boycottchina.

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Xing. I have this image of you. Portly, white, a bit full of yourself and probably old and entitled like most of us who frequent this site - possibly a POM who spent some time in China. Laughing every time your alter ego gets a strong reaction to one of your posts. If you're otherwise... and really believe that the modern CCP embodies the democratic principles of their forebears... then you're a pillock! If you genuinely reside here, you should appreciate the joyful balance we walk in this country - we can slag off others to our hearts content, but when our core values are challenged, left right and indifferent will find common ground.

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'Left, right and indifferent will find common ground'.

Yep, just as they have in the USA. Unanimous support across Republicans and Democrats for HK sanctions.

Hopefully the editors of this site pull back on the pro-China articles. The CCP is a horrid regime and is getting worse.

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Not sure "we can slag off others to our hearts content". Do that here and you will be banned. Do it at work and you will be fired. And soon if Andrew Little has his way, do it at home and you will be jailed.

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Australia can avoid war by China backing off

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NZDM month end stats confirm Crown raised $24.405bn via net debt issuance in the second quarter ending 30 June 2020.

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The Covid 19 stats state we have nearly 1.7mm people on wage support, a further 11% of the working age folks in receipt of support payments.

Add to that central and local government and roughly 80% of the population of working age are presently being paid from the public purse.

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China spoke person on yer bike.
China breaks easily, cracked already.
China is the centre of discount tent. Hong Kong the start of discontent, along with Pandemic Fury.
Do not push your luck.

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Ha some of the claimant companies are double dipping. I know one company (a tenant of ours) that has received their normal annual wage expense in subsidy from govt. They are now making big sales but they still claimed the extension. How is that allowed?

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If it's not allowed then i'm sure the IRD will audit based on data matching.

IF subsidy.taken = yes then _
IF FY2020.value > FY2019.value then _
msgbox "Hello, IRD here"

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This, sums up the current market mentality:

Investors accidentally boosted the shares of Zoom Technologies – an online services group that unfortunately has no connection to Zoom Video Technologies, which owns the popular video conferencing software...FANGDD Network Group found itself in a similar situation as a slew of Robinhood investors – possibly searching for a basket of FAANG stocks (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix & Google) – piled into the group, a small China-based real-estate firm.

Dave Portnoy explained his investment philosophy.
“You just take a couple of Scrabble letters, you mush ’em together, you press ‘buy, buy buy’, and you watch it go up, up, up. That’s how this works,” the sports blogger-turned-investor told his fans.

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Marxism is taking over the US - will it succeed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfX_GXPEUBQ

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Much depends on next president (ie whoever DNC select as Biden's VP). But seems tide is turning on this spasm of rioting driven by various professional provocateur organisations. Middle america is rising up against it.

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no numbers for gold today or mention of the kingold fake gold scam in china.

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America just had it's worst number of virus cases in a day - almost 51k. Along with the first day the world went over 200k at 218k. It's not slowing down...

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yet deaths aren't rising in lockstep - suggests it is mostly result of younger people getting out and ignoring safeguards.

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Doesn't really matter all that matters is case numbers keep rising out of control so its guaranteed to keep killing people. Only a tiny fraction of the world population have had it so the potential deaths are in the millions still. The side effects from the virus could kill just as many as more economies collapse.

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What China is doing to Hong Kong today has been done before.

In this case, the 1960s was a turbulent time in Hong Kong. Throughout the world, it was an era of social change and revolution. Back in Britain, the anti-war and counterculture movements were in full swing. After the People's Republic of China (PRC) consolidated, in the 1960s, the fervor of rebellion took a hold among young people in Hong Kong, whom resented their status as a colony of Britain in unequal racial standing.
A series of labor disputes over unfair conditions in a factory led to a heavy-handed response by police, aggregating in a series of left-wing protests against London’s rule over the colony, bearing slogans such as "Down With British Imperialism!"
The United Kingdom responded not with reconciliation, but with sheer force to the events. The government imposed martial law and granted the police exceptional powers, banning publications, shutting down schools and using lethal force.
Over an 18-month span, nearly 5,000 people were arrested and over 36 people killed by authorities. In Britain itself, the response of the city’s police force was in fact praised, with Queen Elizabeth even granting it the title "Royal."

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