A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; no retail rate changes, but banks foresee negative rates next year, stronger Barfoot auction activity, well-being and trust up, swaps fall, NZD soft, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either.

GOING NEGATIVE?
Economists at ANZ and ASB now see the Reserve Bank taking the Official Cash Rate negative next year.

VERY POSITIVE
Barfoot & Thompson's auction sales surged in the first week of Level 3 lockdown. No sign of a COVID-19 Alert Level 3 slowdown in Barfoot & Thompson's auction rooms yet.

NZ GREEN FINANCE FUNDING AUSSIE IoT BUSINESS
New Zealand Green Investment Finance has purchased a 'strategic' equity stake in Australia-based IoT telco, Thinxtra. They are a network and service provider operating IoT networks in New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong. Apparently the 'green' credentials are that IoT is thought to be enable devices that allow companies "to use less power, travel less and save carbon". Thinxtra also has other 'strategic' equity partners including an Australian government fund.

LESS INVESTMENT IN FARM TRACTORS
Farmers are buying fewer tractors. They purchased -6.6% fewer in July than the same month in 2019, and for the year to July the total was -19% less. The monthly year-on-year change has been negative for 14 of the past seventeen months, a down period as long as the one in the GFC. There are 33,300 tractors registered in New Zealand (plus many more unregistered ones for on-farm use only).

EYES ON DAIRY PRICES
NZX dairy futures suggest auction prices will be slightly soft at tomorrow's event, with WMP down by about -2%. SMP might hold. In any event, the futures market is not predicting a big change either way and not making back the -5.1% fall at the previous auction. 

WELLBEING UP, TRUST UP
With the shift to "well-being" standards, StatisticsNZ has been surveying New Zealanders to quantify it. They are finding it high and improving. Overall life satisfaction remains high and up in 2020 compared to a similar (GSS) survey in 2018. Most New Zealanders are not lonely except for the obvious groups. Loneliness doesn't seem to be increasing. Overall health is good, and while mental health problems persist in some groups, those rates seem to be falling. 6.4% of people aged 18 years or older felt they did not have enough money to meet everyday needs. A further 23% said they had only just enough money. This latest study didn't indicate whether this is improving or deteriorating. Trust in our fellow citizens is rising. This survey also reported rising trust in the police, the health system, Parliament, and the media.

WELCOME THE RAIN, MAY IT BE HEAVY
Low hydro lake levels and low Auckland water storage levels are getting serious. A lot depends on the incoming wet weather over the next few days.

THE THIRD SLAP
China has said it will initiate an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wines. China is the top market for Australian wine exports. The move is widely seen as a punishment of Australia for its close links with the USA and comes after similar earlier moves with barley and tourism. So it is a ratcheting up of pressure. China only moves on items it can easily source from elsewhere, so it is one-sided pain.

EQUITY UPDATES
The NZX50 Capital Index is up another strong +1.6% so far today in late trade. The ASX200 is up +0.4% in early afternoon trade. Shanghai has just opened and is flat, as is Hong Kong. But Tokyo is down another -0.5% in their opening trade. Earlier, Wall Street was up modestly with the S&P500 up +0.3%, The Dow down -0.3% and the tech-heavy NASDAQ up +1.0%.

SWAP RATES UPDATE
Update: Swap rates fell sharply today with the two year rate down -5 bps to just 0.08% and a new record low. Other short end rates fell sharply too. The trigger was the bank economist reports that they expect the 2021 OCR to go negative. We don't have today's change in swap rates yet and will update it here if changes are significant. Yesterday they were unchanged except for a small rise at the long end. We don't expect much change today although the bank economist views that negative rates are on the way might change things somewhat. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged at 0.28%. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down -5 bps at 0.88%. The China Govt 10yr is up +3 bps at 2.97%. And the NZ Govt 10yr yield up +2 bps to 0.69%. The UST 10yr is down -3 bps at 0.68%.

NZ DOLLAR SOFT
The Kiwi dollar is holding at 65.4 USc. Against the Aussie we are lower at 90.7 AUc. Against the euro we are also lower at 55 euro cents. And that means the TWI-5 is softer at just on 68.3.

BITCOIN FIRM
The price of bitcoin is up +4.2% from this time yesterday at US$12,355. 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 ».