A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; more retail rate changes, consumer confidence shaky, jobs resilient, retail spending sinks, equity markets dive, swaps steepen, NZD stable, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Heartland Bank raised mortgage rates today. More here. Bank of China raised its 3 year rate.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
The Wairarapa Building Society (WBS) raised some key rates.

'DOUBTS CREEPING IN'
The ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index eased -5 points to 104.5 in September, led by a decline in the “current conditions” index. The proportion of people who believe it is a good time to buy a major household item fell 20 points to -7. Inflation expectations were steady at 5.1%. House price inflation expectations eased very slightly to 6.1%.

STILL RISING FAST
The average value of New Zealand homes is up +27% over the last 12 months to September, and a +$13,000 rise from August, according to the CoreLogic House Price Index. It is not only increases coming through. There is a wide range of change, with five urban centers showing house price falls in the past three months.

GST EXTENSION
The IRD has announced that taxpayers will have an extra week to file and pay GST and income tax currently due on October 28 this year until November 4. This is because they are shutting down for their final Business Transformation release from 3pm Thursday 21 October until the start of business on Thursday 28 October.

EXTEND & EXTEND
Airlines now have extended support to maintain international passenger services, remain connected with important trade partners "and support the economic recovery", the Government said today. The current support was due to end on October 31, but is now extended to March 31, 2022.  It was originally set to cost $372 mln starting in May 2020. Now the total program will cost $762 mln.

STAYING READY TO RECOVER FAST
August filled jobs data showed that jobs increased by +0.7% from July (+3.9% in a year), despite the country spending half the month in Level 4 lockdown. ANZ says that suggests firms are once again adjusting hours worked, rather than letting staff go, which bodes well for a rapid labour market recovery once restrictions ease.

A LATE SURGE, BUT OVERALL DOWN SHARPLY
Spending through Worldline/Paymark by core retail merchants was $2.994 bln in September 2021, down -17% on Sep-20 and down -11% on Sep-19. But in Auckland, the reduced restrictions under Alert Level 3 caused a surge in fast-food and DIY spending across the city in September.

AUSSIE MORTGAGE MARKET SLIPS
In Australia, new borrower-accepted home loan commitments fell -6.6% from August, but for the year they are up +34%

PANDEMIC PRESSURE SHIFTS
Staying in Australia, there has been an explosion of Delta cases in Victoria with 1143 cases reported there today and more than 10,000 active cases in the state. In NSW there were another 864 new community cases in NSW reported today with another 645 not assigned to known clusters. They now have 9,841 active locally acquired cases which is lower, but they had a record high 15 daily death toll yesterday. Queensland is now reporting two new cases. The ACT has 52 new cases. Overall in Australia, more than 54% of eligible Aussies are fully vaccinated, plus 24% have now had one shot so far. There were no new cases in New Zealand at the border, and 19 more in the community, all in Auckland and all linked to already isolating cases. So far, 46% of eligible Kiwis now have both shots, another 33% the initial shot. So far the New Zealand vaccination effort is faltering slightly (78.3% of Kiwis and still rising) and the Australian is gaining new momentum with theirs now up at 77.8%.

GOLD RISES
Compared to where we were this time yesterday, the gold price has risen +US$23 at US$1755/oz in early Asian trade. But this is -US$2 from where New York closed. It is $12 above the overnight London close.

EQUITIES A SEA OF RED
The S&P500 ended its end of month Thursday session down a sharp -1.2% earlier today taking the monthly retreat to -4.8%, the largest fall since March. The very large Tokyo market has opened down another -1.9%. Hong Kong and Shanghai are on holiday. The ASX200 is down a very sharp -2.0% in afternoon trade, heading for a -2.5% weekly loss. The NZX50 is down -0.3% near its close and heading for a weekly -0.2% loss.

SWAP & BONDS RATES STEEPEN
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. They probably steepened again. We will update this if there are significantly different changes when the end-of-day data comes through. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -2 bps at 0.63%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is now at 1.49% and up +2 bps from this time yesterday. The China Govt 10yr is now at 2.89% and little-changed. The New Zealand Govt 10 year rate is now at 2.02%, up another +2 bps from this time yesterday, and still above the earlier RBNZ fix for that rate at 1.99% (+2 bps). The US Govt ten year is now at 1.48% and down -3 bps from this time this time yesterday.

NZ DOLLAR LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar is now back up to 69 USc. Against the Aussie we are lower at 95.4 AUc and down another -40 bps. Against the euro we are firm at 59.6 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now just on 72.8, and back in the middle of the 72-74 range we have been in for most of the past eleven months.

Appreciate this coverage? Support us in lockdown and go ad-free. Find out how.

BITCOIN UP AGAIN TODAY
The bitcoin price is now at US$43,696 and up +1.9% above where we were this time yesterday. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been modest at just under +/- 1.6%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep ahead of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».