Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank dropped its six month fixed rate down -60 bps to 2.79%, a rate lower than any other bank for that term other than the Co-operative Bank.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
China Construction Bank raise many TD rates, for terms 9 months to 4 years.
HARD FALL
Overseas worker numbers arriving are down by -36,840 since March 2020, down -17% from peak, with overseas student numbers down -40%.
APPROVED
Medsafe has now approved the Pfizer vaccine for 12-15 year olds. This is no surprisre however as it has already been approved for 12-15-year-olds in Canada, the USA, Europe, and Japan.
NEIGHBOUR IN TROUBLE
Things are grim in Fiji today COVID-wise with their Government all but admitting they have lost control of it there in the Central Division, which is the half of Viti Levu around Suva. The fast spread is the Delta (Indian) strain and raises the risks for its Pacific neighbours (including New Zealand).
AGGRESSIVE ACQUIRER
Mercury continues its buying spree with a $441 mln deal to buy the TrustPower retail arm. It says it will have about 780,000 connections across both energy and telco services once the acquisition is completed.
FEW SELLERS
There are now 100 fewer dairy farms offered for sale in New Zealand than at this time in 2020. The decline has been rapid recently, halving since the start of the year to just 142 available now. The numbers for mid June in 2016, 2017, 2018,2019 and 2020 were are similar. It is 2021 that is unusually low.
CHEAP(ER) HYDROGEN
Energy company ENEOS is to build a new facility in Japan that manufactures hydrogen without carbon dioxide emissions, at one-third the current cost, and taking it down to NZ$4.30/kg. Japan is betting big that it will be hydrogen and not electrics that power our future vehicles. The environmental consequences of hydrogen are far, far less than for lithium-powered vehicles - and they can handle the heavy transport requirements. Further, they use existing ICE technologies. China is pushing down this path too.
STUNTED
Australian retail sales rose less than expected in May. The snap lockdown in Melbourne in that month kept things restrained. A national rise of +0.5% from April was expected but it came in at +0.1%. However, the -1.5% fall in Victoria was offset by +1.5% rises in Queensland and Western Australia. Separate NSW data wasn't released. Year-on-year the national retail sales were +7.4% higher than for May 2020. Compared with May 2019 the May 2021 sales are 13.6% higher.
GOLD STABILISES
Compared to where it ended on Saturday, the gold price is up +US$8 and now at US$1772/oz in early Asian trading.
EQUITY MARKETS FLASH TOUGH RE-RATING SIGNALS
The NZX50 Capital Index is retreating to start the week, down -0.4% in late trade after starting positive. The ASX200 is getting thrashed by comparison, down -1.7% in early afternoon trade. But that is nothing like the Tokyo market which is down -3.4% in early trade. By comparison, the Hong Kong dip of -1.3% in early trade and the small Shanghai -0.3% dip seem tame. The S&P500 futures market is down -0.6% and suggesting Wall Street will start its week on the back foot. The markdown seems to be because markets believe Fed rate rises are coming, and are repricing based on the new higher yield requirements.
SWAP & BONDS YIELDS FLATTEN
Update: Short term swap rates rose sharply today, continuing the up-trend. The two year rose another +5 bps. Over the past eight weeks, that is a +30 bps rise. The ten year fell -4 bps. We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. If there are significant changes again today, we will update this item. They probably held, little-changed. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 0.33%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is unchanged from this morning at 1.51%. The China Govt ten year bond is down -2 at just under 3.13%. The New Zealand Govt ten year is down -4 bps at 1.76% but still above the earlier RBNZ fix of 1.75% (unchanged). The US Govt ten year is down another -2 bps to 1.42% from this morning and a rather steep -10 bps from this time on Friday. Interestingly short-term rates are rising which is flattening their curves fast.
NZ DOLLAR HOLDING LOW
The Kiwi dollar has recovered a minor +30 bps from where we opened this morning and is now at 69.6 USc. Against the Aussie we are still at 92.7 AUc. Against the euro we are at 58.6 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is at 72.2.
BITCOIN OFF ITS RECENT LOWS
The bitcoin price is now at US$34,800 and up +0.7% from where we started this morning. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been very high at +/- 4.1%. It might be a big week for bitcoin and its future direction.
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54 Comments
Interestingly short-term rates are rising which is flattening their curves fast.
The bond market – with first its flattening curves – kept warning that the rate hikes were inappropriate due to the fact the economy was never strong, never in any inflationary danger, and was increasingly likely such material weakness would produce a downturn if not recession.Link
How Long Can America Keep Borrowing?
Probably longer than the private sector according to longer term US Treasury curve rates.
30Y Treasury Yield Tumbles Below 2.00%, Japanese Stocks Plunge
Like sideshow barkers, banks, govt politicians, the media and agenda pushing experts are extolling the public. "Roll up and fix your loans for five years! Interest rates are going up a lot!! Do as we say, quickly!!" When in fact they aren't genuinely going up anytime soon.
Dave
What is your rationale for that; or is it just hopeful thinking for one with a large mortgage, or just a wild baseless Monday flippant comment?
Putting aside bank and other economists consistent comments; it is just that the strength of the economy and RBNZ signals indicate upside rates in the next few years
We'll have to disagree on this, printer8. I have long taken the contrarian approach. The key competitive rates are still quietly going down. It's not those rates the banks are making a sing song about. They don't want a ticking off from the Govt, who needs to appear to be doing something positive about the housing dilemma. So of course, as far as the banks will have you know, rates are definitely going up! The Govt, the banks and the media are generally singing off the same sheet here. A few of them even believe it. And rates are going up - and down, simultaneously.
Hydrogen! Quietly progressing. No one with any knowledge of history would underestimate the collective genius and achievements that Japan and China have demonstrated scientifically and industrially. Ditto for Russia and they have a large development project underway. Recall President Bush junior quietly granted a $ billion budget for the same early in his presidency. Not a dead duck project obviously. Wonder though what this government would come up with to prevent current Ute and such like vehicles running on hydrogen, should it suitably become available sometime in the future?
By one estimate, channeling the power currently consumed by the smelter alone into green hydrogen production would produce enough to fuel NZ's entire heavy vehicle fleet (freight carriers and passenger buses).
Those billions of dollars we currently spend on fuel imports will instead circulate in the domestic economy and bring higher-paying jobs to our regions.
Depends on the type of energy storage. If the limits of electric cells for example are 400km range for a fully laden electric truck, and it takes 12 hours to recharge vs 800km range on Hydrogen fuel cell and you can refill in a few minutes then despite a negative EROI you have a benefit.
If we're talking about surplus renewable energy being converted then it's still a win.
It’s actually blue ammonia the Japanese have signed up for, carbon dioxide is a byproduct and I assume it will be pumped down depleted Saudi oil wells..but they tend to leak don’t they?
Also, ammonia is a very dangerous gas if it escapes..
The plunging prices should warn us production of hydrogen is not a good choice for NZ, better to stick to sheep.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric…
ENEOS Corporation (ENEOS) and Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced that they have agreed on a new partnership to explore the utilization and application of hydrogen energy at Woven City, the prototype city of the future that Toyota has started to develop in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture. ENEOS and Toyota, together with Woven Planet Holdings (Woven Planet), a subsidiary of Toyota, leading the Woven City project, intend to conduct testing and demonstration in areas related to a hydrogen-based supply chain, from production, delivery to usage of hydrogen, in and around Woven City. Through this effort, they aim to help achieve a carbon-neutral society by 2050 as Japan and many other countries around the world have committed
Isn't the EROEI negative (or at least fery small) for hydrogen?
Edit: yep according to this article https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-hydrogen-is-not-a-cure-for-emissions
I'm going to need some citations about that claim hydrogen has far lower environmental consequences than electric batteries. For starters it uses massively more electricity to produce hydrogen and use it in a vehicle than to charge a battery, plus it requires a whole new distribution network rather than reuse the one we already have
Russia has one of the world’s largest nuclear plant fleets which is built and operated by state-owned Rosatom. A significant order portfolio for new plants both domestically and abroad is an incentive to develop and improve existing technologies. Therefore, nuclear energy is seen as an asset which through the process of electrolysis could be used to produce ‘yellow’ hydrogen. Link
Have a read of the article, and have a think
:)
The problem is the old one of EROEI. Energy only gives us work, when we change its form. That is always one-way traffic, in the direction of Entropy. At some point the energy required to gain the energy (scooping. say, the low-grade heat in a room where a coffee-cup had cooled - all of it - would take more energy than was originally in the cup. So it is never done, and we turn to concentrated energy sources for the next hot cuppa. This is tha same with hydrogen; by the time you crack it, store it, its consumed more energy than those efforts took. You're in negative territory. That makers it fine for selected uses (like space-travel) where overall loss if unimportant. But it isn't a goer in a big way; just a quicker way to deplete your uranium and gas supplies. That may make you look short-term-richer (to an economist) but to a resource-counter, it looks like you're getting poorer, faster.
On a finite planet that is true - but preparations are underway to invest in travel to what seems an infinite universe.
And enough with the science bullshit - I did my time at Victoria University gaining a BSc (Hons) certificate - that was enough and I ended up doing other things.
Only if you expend less energy in both take-offs (assuming you're coming back, one if you're staying) than the energy you bring home in your gravity-affected payload. I remember the movies of Apollo blasting off - and that was just 3 people, 2 of whom landed in little more than a VW Beetle. With no payload. I suspect physics still applies and I suspect that it what Cameron was saying with Avatar, as well as noting the social ramification of colonialism.
Odd though isn’t it then. At least four of the world’s largest economic and industrial powers see fit to invest heavily into this research. Fancy that, all those highly qualified and intelligent scientists and such like being on such a false errand. In this day and age with computers and all the modern tools and gadgets and they are nothing more than a bunch of alchemists, all of them. Wonder why. Somebody from here who knows more, needs to get over there pronto and put them right.
Why does inefficiency mean it's unsustainable?
For example hydrogen created from solar or hydro power.
The inefficiency doesn't stop it being useful, as there's constantly more energy coming from the sun.
At least until the sun runs out, but we're all dead then anyway.
theres energy constantly coming from the sun but to convert that energy you need energy to make it directly useable....hydrogen production and storage is particularly wasteful of that energy...better (though still not long run sustainable) to use that energy (largely fossil fuels) for a more efficient conversion....it is limited so treat it with value it deserves and dont waste it making even less energy.
NZD - because of Huntly already, let alone generating more. Because all sources are fossil-energy derived (I run on solar PV and micro-hydro, neither of which would be here without FF. We have to use FF to morph, that's a given. But when a negative-EROEI vector (hydrogen is a vector, not a source, much the same as a lead/acid battery is a vector) takes lake-held energy and returns less, that creates more electricity demand (for the likes of a Huntly).
LMBF - Yes - that is, interestingly enough, why we never cultivated carnivores. Jared Diamond was onto this; he points out that it takes 10,000 lb of sun-grown corn to raise 1,000 lb of corn-fed beef; it would take 10,000 lb of beef to feed a carnivore to edible mass. We're better eating the corn ourselves, in sunlit-acre-per-person terms. In the old day, that equation ran up against sheer distance (out from a town, city or village). We've circumvented distance with in-ground fossil energy - a once-off phenomenon.
The EROEI of hydrogen is a net loss. If you want to store what you've got and are prepared to wear the loss, fine. But realise that we are in surplus-energy descent, which means we will be prepared to do that less and less. We'll be seeing energy as gold, before too much longer.
As for all those corporations which must be right - actually, they are first, foremost and only about making money, and/or surviving in a system thus accounted. They don't care if it's long-term detrimental; they've proven that in the face of CC - they're still making ICE cars..... The Baskett piece vi Newsroom, states it as clearly as I've seen it.
Well they are ralking about ammonia which can be made two ways. There is the current production method which is the cheap and dirty Haber-Bosch process and there are clean methods as well (e.g. reverse fuel cell.) Much like charging your EV if you're using coal to produce that energy it's not going to be of any environmental benefit.
EVs are better for New Zealand because all the dirty and energy intensive part of making an EV is done upstream. We can effectively export those carbon emissions.
I agree with Burry which is why I've never been interested in memestocks, and recently took profits on most of my alts consolidating into Bitcoin. If you've followed Burry for any length of time you'll realise he's mostly talking about leveraged positions. Anyone who is selling BTC in the next 4 weeks, doesn't understand the market and deserves to crystallize losses IMO.
Solid dump last night, was fun to watch now that I dont have leveraged positions haha.
Big hash rate drop, estimating a 15% reduction in the difficulty coming up.
Memepool is still nice and empty, put through a transaction last night at 10 sat/vbit and it went through within the hour.
Michael Saylor the man himself has purchased his additional 13,000 Bitcoin at an average of 37k to bring MS up to 105,000 Bitcoin :D
I'll buy one and ditch the scooter.
For students of poltical arts.
Well played PM.
The fake Because.
- its sounds like a reason, but is really no evidence of a reason.
The word "because" is the trick to make recollection sound like something of substance.
The little story of what she "usually" does is a distraction art, any one with teenagers sees immediately.
In 2019 a report called He Puapua came to Government but was never shown to one NZ First Cabinet minister. This report was deliberately suppressed," Peters said.
Ardern dismissed Peters' claims on Monday.
"That is certainly not my recollection because I usually will recall those papers where they've come through and for any given reason they've been unable to progress," Ardern told reporters.
"That's not my recollection for that paper at all."
National leader Judith Collins has accused the Government of trying to implement "separatism by stealth", pointing to plans for a Māori Health Authority and Māori wards in local councils, both of which are recommended in the He Puapua report.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/jacinda-ardern-denies-c…
Peters described the report as a "recipe for Māori separatism", echoing Collins.
He said Labour knew it and "that's why they suppressed it till after the election in the full knowledge that NZ First is for one flag, one country, one law".
"It was a gesture of ingratitude and bad faith," Peters said.
A wonderful and appropriate line comes to mind, in a high court judgement by a now Supreme Court judge. “ ……… has an economic view of the truth.” For some time , and I commented as such on here, I believed our current PM to be a sincere person. Not for the first time in my life sadly, my judgement was wrong.
Yep, she has had a busy day..
Here students can discuss "objective truth" and see with their own eyes reality being bent.
"The country employing a different strategy" Priceless PM well played!
https://mobile.twitter.com/1NewsNZ/status/1406716817167425538
Prime Minister rejects NZ being ranked last in the OECD for Covid vaccination rates
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/pm-rejects-nz-ranking-last-…
New Zealand has slumped to 120th in the world for Covid-19 vaccinations as it prepares to treat the general population next month.
Jacinda Ardern said "no, no" when asked on Breakfast about New Zealand being ranked 120th, last in the OECD, as of June 15.
She said such rankings largely measure first doses and the country was employing a "different strategy" in its vaccine rollout.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/new-zealand-slumps-120th-in…
Today, the Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield confirmed a 10 per cent slowdown in the rollout last week as health officials looked to manage supply.
The government does not want to open the border. Hence the slower the vaccine roll out the longer this policy can be argued and maintained. There has been concern right from the start that our hospitals and health services are in no position to accommodate an influx of CV19 cases. Undoubtedly true, but then again if a high percentage of NZrs were vaccinated that risk, from data overseas, would be mitigated. The government is playing Catch 22 with very little finesse it seems.
Here we are just thirteen months after the pandemic began. This time last year we didn’t know if a vaccine could be produced and what future we faced... and now people are bitching and moaning about delays in the roll out.Give me a break...we should be celebrating... we have come so far.
Impatient ungrateful w**kers!
GNX - no, they're calculating, spin-emanating, absolutely sure of what they're doing w**kers.
And the media play into their hands by being so ignorant (in RNZ's case particularly).
The reality is that the energy-surplus was starting to reduce by the 1980's (the '67 oil-curtailment didn't have an effect, the '73 one did) so we got a rise and rise of those who would out-bid out-gun others. That was neoliberalism, peddling falsehoods like trickle-down, free markets, all that. The problem is that they saw resilience/capacity as idle 'capital', and cut it to the bone everywhere. It kept the show on the road for 40 more ever-shakier years, but its had its day as an approach. This Govt has inherited that unhappy (non-resilient, run-down mess, including a run-down health system. Non spare beds, no spare anything. They had to shield it, no alternative.
They have other problems, faults and falsely-held assumptions, but that one they had no choice over.
Credit where its due.
She is big in Japan.
Used car dealers in Japan love her.
.... the moment news about the subsidy reached his suppliers in Japan, the supplier's prices went up.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/06/clean-car-package-co…
The Government's attempt to lower the prices of electric vehicles may have backfired already.
From next month, rebates will be offered on new EVs, but Kiwi importers say that could be cancelled out because their suppliers overseas are raising prices, anticipating a surge in demand.
"Japan is our primary supply market for pre-owned EVs, and after the subsidies were announced [on Monday], we saw prices steadily rising in Japan," says GVI Electric general manager Hayden Johnston.
I'm with Dave. Any Bank that ditches the one year special low rate is going to lose customers. My son who bought his first home last year told me, he'll switch banks every year, ask for a cash back and legal fees paid. I wonder if these recent FHBs have collective clout? WallStBets type clout?
Today must be special.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/just-five-extra-acute-m…
For students, Here is a classic deception. A sentence claiming opposites are both true. The PM is on fire! Well played.
On crisis services, undeniably we need to build more capacity - undeniably," Ardern told The AM Show.
"There are beds - there are not enough beds... and they're not in the right places too. Too many young people need to move as well."
The art here is her supporters are comforted by the claim that there are beds, while the real truth comes after - there are not enough beds.
The artistry continues by the confusion phrase "and they are not in the right places too" (this encourages your brain to think there are enough beds).
As we found this morning, is it any wonder that the next way of EVs in NZ will be coal powered - and probably remain so for 20 years - until more reliable baseload hydro or clean nuclear built.
Cut some slack. This is after all the MoH. They not the government run the cutter don’t you know. You know them that blew $38 mill on their own headquarters. Stuffed the new hospital wing in Christchurch to cost more and provide less beds plus how much to fix the cheap plumbing failures. Steadfastly denied an $80 mill odd shortfall in the Canterbury DHB despite an independent audit, but coughed it up as soon as the executive team had resigned. And now they are going to centralise all the power into a UK NHS format, to this lot of bureaucrats.
Foxglove - try reading Tainter:
https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/d…
I'm more interested in the HT outpouring; did an edict go out to up the ante?
It would have been only a few hours after this article was published but Bitcoin plunged ~10% in an hour this evening. The fall is being attributed to Chinese strong talk against crypto on Twitter but I’ve my doubts. This is where we were almost a month ago.
Interesting times for the crypto market but I’ve a suspicion the bulls will take control in The next 4 weeks.
If you look at the lifecycle of vehicles a Tesla Model 3 produces about 91 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilometre but a Toyota Yaris Hybrid produces about 75 grams of CO2 per kilometre.
It's far from clear to me that EVs are actually a better technology than hybrids currently. I think that's why Toyota are being very careful, they see that potentially if governments look at lifecycle emissions then EVs might be slapped with new taxes.
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