A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; no retail rates changes, retail sales up, job ads up, truckometer suggests a negative Q4, smartphone sales boom, swaps and NZD little-changed, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There are no changes to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None to report today here either.

SPOTTY
Retail activity rose +3.3% in November above the same month a year ago for the core retail activities of consumables (+5.3%), durables (+8.5%), hospitality (-8.3%) and apparel (+4.3%). But outside those, things were quite negative. Spending on fuel was down -16.6% and for services down -2.4%. Non-retail card activity was down -8.2% on the same basis. That means that total electronic card activity was down -0.8% in November compared with November 2019. Westpac looked at these numbers and has a more upbeat view.

UPBEAT ON JOB ADS
The BNZ-Seek Employment Report on job ad levels was also upbeat. "With its 6.9% advance in November, job advertising indicated a genuine recovery is in train. This is after gains in September and October that likely had elements of rebound from a compromised August, when COVID-19 restrictions were tightened. The sense of underlying recovery was also evident in the fact November’s ads were down just -5.1% on year-ago levels. This continues a claw back that has been underway ever since April’s ads were down -73.7% on an annual basis."

"SLIPPING"
The weak spending on fuels in the retail spending report is confirmed by the ANZ Truckometer report. "Light traffic" (read cars) activity was lower in November than expected. The lack of tourists is becoming evident in car traffic, while the Heavy Traffic Index (trucks and freight) ANZ says, suggests "a stonking Q3 GDP outturn", also raises the real possibility that Q4 is tracking for negative growth.

MARKET MANIPULATION
The FMA has issued a formal warning to an unnamed individual trader. The alleged misconduct occurred in April 2020, with the individual trading on their own behalf via an online trading account. It involved the individual buying a small parcel of shares at a price materially higher than the last traded price, while attempting to sell a larger parcel of the same shares at the higher price. Trading of this nature is likely to trigger surveillance alerts, which it did in this case.

REGULATION OF FEES COMING
The Government is proposing to regulate interchange fees, typically the largest component of merchant service fees charged by banks to business customers, through "hard caps" priced for a range of different types of merchants. Additionally the Government is also mulling a range of other options to force down merchant service fees.

BACK TO NORMAL
The NZ smartphone market is coming back strongly, up +35% in the September quarter to sell 384,000 units. That spurt means the year-on-year sales level is almost the same as for Q3-2019, according to the latest IDC Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

HIGHER YIELDS HOLD
Treasury tendered $600 mln in three tranches today and that attracted $2.35 bln in bids leaving $1.75 bln unsatisfied. The April 20023 tranche for $250 mln attracted $892 mln in bids and the average yield was 0.22% pa, unchanged from the prior issue. The April 2029 tranche was also for $250 mln, and that was even more popular, attracting $1.052 bln in bids. The average yield was 0.73% pa and also unchanged. The final $100 mln for the April 2033 tranche attracted $405 mln in bids and was sold with an average yield of 1.07% pa and this was marginally higher than last time.

SINKING TO NEGATIVE YIELDS
The latest Australian Government bond tender of AU$150 mln went off with a yield of -0.79% for their September 2030 linker issue. Just five bidders won at that average rate of the 38 who bid a total of AU$836 mln. And the latest AOFM AU$1.5 bln Note tender, attracted a massive AU$8.2 bln in bids and the average yield for the 19 winning bids was 0.0099% for their March 2021 Note, with at least one "winner" offering a negative yield of -0.01%, the first time this has happened for an AOFM Notes issue.

LOADING UP $50 BLN MORE
In Australia, a Parliamentay Budget Office report sheds some light of the future of their Federal finances. For 2020-21 they will run an underlying cash deficit of -AU$214 bln. And at -11% of GDP this is around 2½ times greater than the previous worst deficit of the last fifty years. Total net debt will rise to 44% of GDP in 2023-24 they say, and the negatives will echo for decades to come with lower tax revenues and higher expense and support obligations.

GOLD PRICE WEAKER
In Asian trade, the price of gold has slipped -US$1 from the ending New York price and is now at US$1838/oz. But that is -US$32 below the price at this time yesterday. The New York price ended at US$1839/oz and was -US$3 lower than the afternoon London fix.

EQUITIES UPDATE
Wall Street ended its session today down by -0.8% with most of the fall in the morning session. The ASX200 is trading down -0.6% in mid-day trade while the NZX50 Capital Index is flat near the end of today's session. Meanwhile, the very large Tokyo market has opened today down -0.3% in early trade. Hong Kong has opened down -0.6%, while Shanghai has opened down -0.2% in early trade today.

SWAP & BOND RATES STABLE
We don't have todays swap rate movements yet. If there are material changes when the end-of-day swap rates are available, we will update them here. The 90 day bank bill rate is -1 bp lower today at 0.26%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is down -2 bps at 1.01%. The China Govt ten year bond is unchanged at 3.30%. And the New Zealand Govt ten year is holding at 0.93% and marginally above the earlier RBNZ-recorded fix of 0.91% (-3 bps). And above the US Govt ten year is down marginally today to 0.93%.

NZD SOFT
Against the US Dollar, the Kiwi dollar is a -¼c softer that this time yesterday at 70.2 USc. On the cross rates we are down -¾c against the Aussie to 94.3 AUc and against the euro we are little-changed at 58.1 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 has slipped lower to 72.3.

BITCOIN RECOVERS
Bitcoin is now at US$18,468 and recovering +1.1% from this time yesterday. The bitcoin rate is charted in the exchange rate 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 ».