A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; new record low mortgage rate, more TD rate cuts, PSI rebounds, farms sell well, China gets tetchy, swaps and NZD unchanged, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
HSBC has launched a full rate card of market leading fixed mortgage rates. SBS Bank has cut rates on two key fixed terms. WBS also cut its fixed rates.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
HSBC has also trimmed their already very low term deposit rates. Kiwibank also cut its TD rates today. WBS cut its TD rates as well.

SERVICES REBOUND
Like its sister survey in the manufacturing sector, activity in New Zealand’s services sector rose back into expansion, according to the BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index. The sharpest rise was for new orders. But not everything is moving back up. Among the major components, employment remains the laggard. Yes, June’s 45.1 is higher than May’s 40.5, but it has only returned to levels seen during the 2008/09 recession and is still sub-50 indicating service sector job losses. The Warehouse Group is emblematic.

FARMS SELL WELL
Farm sales came in quite strong in June, with 108 contracts signed. This was much better than the 85 sold in June 2019. (The average over the previous four years was 141 in a June.) But there was only one dairy farm sold this year, vs 8 in June 2019. Median prices overall were up +5% year-on-year but lower than in May, probably because of the very low number of dairy farm sales. However, the REINZ warns of an avalanche of farms for sale building up.

A GOOD RECOVERY
There were 659 lifestyle block sales in June, a full recovery after the low levels in the two lockdown months prior. January recorded 650 and February 626. June 2019 recorded 609 and the average for the previous four years was 703.

CHINA TELL US IT WON'T TOLERATE CRITICISM
China's ambassador to New Zealand has warned us to butt out of pointing out its human rights failings. "China has always followed the principle of non-interference in others' internal affairs. At the same time, China stands ready to safeguard its core and major interests. Issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet all touch on China's sovereignty and security and these are all China's internal affairs," they said. But China inserted two MPs into our Parliament, one on each side, so it can hardly say it isn't interfering in our affairs. And our Prime Minister said that while the NZ-China relationship was "in good shape", NZ would continue to express its views on Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang. Doing so was "important to who we are as NZers" and that differences of opinion were "normal and should not define our relationship."

WORLD'S 3rd LARGEST ECONOMY STRUGGLES
Japan's exports suffered a double-digit decline for the fourth month in a row in June as the pandemic took a heavy toll on global demand, reinforcing expectations that their economy has sunk into its deepest recession in decades. Exports were down -26% in June from the same month a year ago. Imports were down -14%.

SINGAPORE SUPPORT
Singapore has announced that more than 140,000 employers, with 1.9 million local employees, will receive payouts starting next week totalling over NZ$4.4 bln under their jobs support scheme, or NZ$2300/employee. There are about 400,000 registered businesses in Singapore in a population of 5.9 mln. Their employed labour force is 3.8 mln. (New Zealand has 547,000 registered businesses in a population of 5 mln. Our employed labour force is 2.6 mln.)

EQUITY UPDATES
The NZX50 Capital Index is down a marginal -0.2% in late trade. The ASX200 is -0.7% lower in afternoon trade. Shanghai has opened a strong +2.1% higher but both Hong Kong and Tokyo are both -0.3 lower in early trade. The futures market indicates that the S&P500 will open flat, the same as where it closed on Friday.

SWAP RATES UPDATE
Swap rates probably shifted a little flatter again 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 unchanged at 0.30%. The Aussie Govt 10yr is unchanged at 0.88%. The China Govt 10yr is down by -3 bps to 2.99%. The NZ Govt 10yr yield is also down another -3 bps at 0.88%. The UST 10yr is unchanged at 0.62%.

NZ DOLLAR LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar has changed little today, still at 65.4 USc and still in an extended quiet phase. Against the Aussie we are little-changed at 93.8 AUc. Against the euro we are soft at 57.3 euro cents. And that means the TWI-5 is still just over 69.9.

BITCOIN STABLE
The price of bitcoin is marginally firmer today, up less than +1% at US$9,196. 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 ».