A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; retail sales gains go timid, social housing register bursts higher, farmers grumpy, swaps soft & flatter, NZD slips, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Police Credit Union cut their one year fixed by -10 bps.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Police Credit Union raised their 9mth to 2 year offer rates by +10 to +45 bps. Kiwibank raised their 1 year rate by +10 bps to 1.15%.

RESTING ON LAURELS
Retail sales are rising, but not for clothing or fuel on a m/m basis. Sales using electronic cards are up +5.4% in June from a year ago, and more tellingly are up +9.8% from June 2019. Core retail (excluding fuel, cars, and business activity) is up almost +14% from June 2019. Year-on-year is one thing, but the more current month-on-month gains have been falling away, up a very modest +0.6% for core retail. (Kiwibank data reports similar changes.)

A RECORD HIGH
Although it is not new 'today', you should know that we are now tracking the MSD Social Housing Register, which as at March 2021 had 23,688 people on its waiting list, a record high. The next update to June is expected about early August.

SEVEN UPDATES
Last week the NZX50 capitalisation slipped -0.2% from the prior week to be $130.2 bln although that is up +0.6% in a month and up +8.4% since September 30, 2020. You can find all NZX50 listed companies and their current capitalisation here and how they rank. Each company listed has a detailed profile. We have also update these profiles to include the latest financial data for Mainfreight (MFT, #5), Kiwi Property (KPG, #19), Z Energy (ZEL, #23), Pushpay (PPH, #24), Argosy Property (ARG, #25), Stride Property (SPG, #27) and Arvida (ARV, #28).

FARMER WINTER OF DISCONTENT
Rural communities are organising protests. The new "fee" on the farm vehicle work-horse to fund electric vehicle grants, when suitable EVs are not yet a realistic option for farmers, "has just highlighted in farmers’ minds that the Wellington Beltway thinkers just don’t get regional New Zealand", says Federated Farmers.

FILLING UP, MOSTLY
At least over the past weekend, we didn't get another wholesale electricity price surge. Maybe that was the hydro lakes are filling fast and are now well above their long-term average levels. But we can't say the same for Auckland's water reservoir lakes.

ANOTHER GOOD REBOUND
Japanese machinery orders in May rose far above expectations, a surge that took them up to almost ¥2.8 tln and +20% higher than for May 2019 (May 2020 was pandemic-affected and was under ¥2 tln.)

SLOW OUT OF THE BLOCKS
In Australia, regulator APRA said banks should develop tactical fixes to IT systems to make sure they can process negative interest rates, and failing to do so creates a material risk. APRA is far behind the RBNZ who pushed through that requirement in 2020.

COVID NUMBERS JUMP IN SYDNEY AGAIN
Today they reported +120 new cases, taking the current known infection level to 678. 63 are in hospital, 18 are in ICU.

OWN GOAL
And in the UK, we should probably start monitoring their COVID caseloads again, given they seem to have decided on a rogue experimental path just as the delta variant is taking off there. Yesterday they reported more than 30,000 new infections, and taking their total active cases tp over 630,000. Their death rate had almost vanished, but now that it has been just a few weeks since it started rising again, that rate is almost certain to kick up sharply again very soon. They are declaring victory at precisely the wrong time.

GOLD SLIPS
Compared to where we were this morning, the gold price is down -US$4/oz to US$1804/oz in early Asian trading.

EQUITIES ALL UP
The NZX50 started with a good gain today but that has fallen away to be up only +0.1% near the close. The ASX200 has held its early gains and is up +0.9% in early afternoon trade. The Tokyo has opened up a very strong +2.2%. Hong Kong has opened up +0.5% and Shanghai has opened up +0.3%. The S&P500 futures index suggests it will open little-changed from its record high Friday close.

SWAP & BONDS FALL & FLATTEN
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. If there are significant changes again today, we will update this item. They are probably lower and flatter. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -2 bps at 0.32%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is down -4 bps from this morning's open at just on 1.34%. The China Govt ten year bond is down another -2 bps at 3.02%. The New Zealand Govt ten year is also down another -2 bps so far today at 1.53% and still below the earlier RBNZ fix of 1.54% (unchanged). The US Govt ten year is unchanged from this time this morning at 1.36%.

NZ DOLLAR SOFTER
The Kiwi dollar has slipped marginally today, down to just on 69.9 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 93.5 AUc. Against the euro we are also little-changed from this morning at 58.8 euro cents. So the TWI-5 is slightly soft at 72.5 compared to where we opened this morning.

BITCOIN FIRMS SLIGHTLY
The bitcoin price is now at US$34,132 and up +0.7% from where we were at this morning. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been low at +/- 1.9%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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