A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; Westpac adds +20bps, ANZ delivers Bonus Bonds return, job levels dip, crane activity up, huge CCC submission volumes, swaps & NZD stable, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Nothing here today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Westpac popped its 9 month up to 1.00%, a +20 bps addition.

AN ACTUAL RETURN
ANZ says it is confident investors will receive at least $1.10 for each Bonus Bond they hold by the completion of the wind-up of the scheme.

FEWER JOBS, BUT BETTER THAN EXPECTED
Filled jobs were unchanged in February and were down slightly on a year ago. Westpac says jobs have held up better than expected through the tourist-less summer, but still suggest an uptick in unemployment in the near term. Wellington and the mid North Island are making jobs gains on government projects; the rest of the country, including Auckland, is soft on a weakening private sector.

THE MOMENTUM RETURNS IN CONSTRUCTION
There are now 136 construction cranes working on sites in New Zealand, up from 125 in September and 128 in March 2020. 78 of them are in Auckland, 18 in Wellington, and 15 in each of Christchurch and Queenstown. Almost half of them (61, or 45%) are on residential projects, and 45 of those are working on big residential projects in Auckland.

'SIGNIFICANT UNCERTAINTY'
Dairy company Synlait (SML) says it is 'continuing to experience significant uncertainty' within its business; has 'proactively engaged' with bankers to increase leverage ratios on its covenants

GET READY FOR THE RE-OPENING
The Department of Internal Affairs is encouraging people to renew their passports now to avoid the rush when quarantine free travel opens.

ONLY FOREIGN FUNDING CAN DO THE JOB - SO LONG AS WE UNDERWRITE IT
The RBNZ has issued an enthusiastic supporting submission to the Climate Change Commission's draft report. But it notes that the investment in green solutions will be much more risky for private investors than they may be prepared to accept in the intermediate term. The financial risk failure of investing unproven climate mitigation projects is high. And yet, international private funding is probably the only source large enough to tackle some of these projects. The RBNZ says it will have to be done here by transferring or mitigating perceived ‘pioneer risk’ - presumably the taxpayer will have to pick up the risk as we go into debt to international investors.

YES, BUT MORE OPENNESS NEEDED
BusinessNZ has also made a submission, largely in favour too. But they want more clarity on many of the CCC's assumptions which remain fairly opaque.

CARBON CHEAPER
Following the Government's highly publicised NZ Unit (NZU) carbon price auction, the NZU price has fallen -6.8% in two weeks to $36.90/NZU - presumably not the effect James Shaw had in mind. A chart of the daily price is now available in the RH sidebar of our service here (desktop version only)

RETRACING
Wholesale electricity prices fell back sharply over the weekend, but from a longer perspective, there are still high at $233/MWhr.

STEP ONE DONE
MBIE is reporting that all priority earthquake prone buildings (EPBs) in New Zealand’s high seismic risk areas have now been identified by local territorial authorities. The next step is for high-risk areas to identify non-priority buildings, and for medium risk areas to identify their priority buildings, all by 1 July 2022.

THREE YEAR HIGH
Real estate auction activity is surging in Australia. There were 3,791 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities last week, the busiest auction week since the week ending 25th March 2018

BRISBANE IN LOCKDOWN
With 10 new cases overnight, four in the community, Brisbane has been plunged into a snap three-day lockdown. Some infected people have 'escaped' to northern NSW (Byron Bay).

THE FRONT STILL STUCK
The ship stuck in the Suez Canal is still stuck, even after mammoth engineering efforts, and the benefit of a high tide. It is 5am in Suez at 4pm in NZ. The next high tide is at 11:40am local time, in about 8 hours. The tide is in play because the blockage is quite near the southern end of the 193 km canal.

WESTPAC NZ CREDIT RATINGS ON 'RATING WATCH NEGATIVE'
Credit rating agency Fitch has placed Westpac New Zealand's credit ratings on rating watch negative following news Westpac NZ's Aussie parent is reviewing its ownership. Westpac NZ's credit ratings are equalised with its parent. 

GOLD SOFT
Gold is trading in Australia, and soon in Asian markets. So far today it is at US$1,730 and down -US$3 from this time Saturday.

EQUITIES MIXED
The NZX50 Capital Index is up +0.3% in late trade today. The ASX200 is down -0.3% in early afternoon trade. At their session opening, Tokyo is up +0.8%. Hong Kong is down -0.6% and Shanghai has opened down -0.2%. The S&P500 futures index suggests Wall Street will open -0.5% lower.

SWAPS HOLD & BONDS FIRM
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. If there are movements today, we will note them here later when we get the data. They probably are little-changed. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 0.34%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is down -3 bps (from where we opened this morning) at 1.70%. The China Govt ten year bond is up +1 bp at 3.23%. And the New Zealand Govt ten year is up +4 bps at 1.69% and above the level of the earlier RBNZ fixing at 1.67% (+5 bps). The US Govt ten year is currently down -1 bp from this morning at 1.66%.

NZD LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar is marginally softer from where we opened this morning at 69.8 USc. On the cross rates we are softish at 91.6 AUc. Against the euro we holding at 59.2 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 is stable at 72.3.

BITCOIN SOFTENS
Bitcoin has fallen slightly to US$55,098 and down -2% from where we opened this morning. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been low at +/- 1.6%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».