A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; Barfoot sales stutter, business confidence 'bizarre', dairy prices in focus, NZX's property sector loses some shine, swaps stable, NZD stable, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either.

FIRST SIGN OF WEAKNESS?
Auckland's dominant realtor reports the average selling price for properties traded in September fell -$51,000 from its July peak. Their September sales volumes were down -40% on September last year.

'SPRING BOUNCE'
The ANZ World Commodity Price Index lifted +1.5% in September, partially unwinding the previous month’s fall. Dairy and forestry both regained some ground and aluminium and meat prices (particularly lamb) were strong. But this gain was suppressed in NZD terms as the local currency appreciated in the month.

CURVE BALL?
The results of the NZIER Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion wasn't quite what many experts were expecting. BNZ sums it up this way: "Today’s NZIER Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion produced a set of results that can be best described as bizarre. On the one hand the survey tells us capacity constraints are extreme and the labour market is stretched to breaking, demanding an immediate response from the RBNZ. On the other hand, it would appear businesses have no intent to raise prices, cost pressures are under control and inflation threatens to drop to the lower end of the RBNZ’s target band." But demand is holding up, so the RBNZ is still expected to raise the OCR tomorrow.

SFO BROUGHT IN
The Serious Fraud Office has opened an investigation into Options Trading and Investments NZ Limited (Options Trading), now in liquidation, and Tiavare Richard Curtis Joseph, also known as Ritchie Wineera. Damien Grant is the liquidator and probably initiated the action.

FISHER FUNDS BUYING AON'S SUPER BUSINESS
Fisher Funds says it has reached an agreement to acquire Aon New Zealand’s superannuation business, which includes the Aon New Zealand KiwiSaver scheme and Master Trust.

DIGITAL WALLET APP DOSH LIVE
Dosh, a digital wallet app, is now live. It's available on the Apple and Google app stores and enables people to send money to each other at any time of any day of the week. Small business owners can now instantly accept payments via QR code with Dosh. Westpac subsidiary Red Bird Ventures is also launching a payments app called Buck.

ALL SIGNS SUGGEST A MODEST RISE IN DAIRY PRICES
There is another dairy auction tomorrow morning, and the derivatives markets suggest the WMP price will rise +1.5% and the SMP price will rise +2.5%. If that eventuates, it will be the fourth consecutive rise. It will be aided by a -0.6% devaluation of the NZD since the prior event.

QUITTING AUSTRALIA?
In Australia, there are swirling rumours that Fonterra is about to sell its operations there to Bega. Fonterra has also been mulling quitting it via an IPO.

PROPERTY'S SHRINKING INFLUENCE
Last week on the NZX50, the property sector suffered a much larger retreat than the overall market. The eight companies in that sector fell -2.2% in capitalisation in the week, compared to the overall hold. These companies are now worth 8.9% of the overall market. A year ago they represented 9.1%. Last week, the largest fall was by Goodman Property (GMT, #15) who lost -4.7% in the week.

MARKETS EXPECT THE SIGNALED RISE
The RBNZ will review its OCR rate tomorrow and it is widely expected to go from 0.25% to 0.5%. Markets have price that in. If they don't shift higher, market reaction will be intense and swift. The RBA reviewed its settings at 4:30pm today. No change was expected over there, and none happened.

BIG BOOST TO SHARE EQUITY OPTIONS
Kāinga Ora has launched a share equity scheme to help those with low deposits into home ownership. The make-up of shared ownership will be determined by several factors, including: how much of a deposit you have, how much a participating lender is willing to lend you, and how much contribution Kāinga Ora will make towards purchasing the home with you. For example, you may have saved 10% of the purchase price of a home and a participating bank is willing to lend you 75%. Kāinga Ora then contributes 15% to purchase the home with you in return for a 15% share of ownership in the home.

NORMAL RETURNS
All the talk earlier in the year about droughts and 'water crises' have now vanished. Lakes and reservoirs are now all at 'normal' or fuller now. In this case 'normal' means the long term average (over 90 years).

ANOTHER RECORD
Australia reported a record high trade surplus of AU$15 bln for the month for both goods and services. That was half as much again as analysts had expected. Surging natural gas and coal exports were very much stronger than expected.

PANDEMIC PRESSURE SHIFTED
Staying in Australia, there has been an explosion of Delta cases in Victoria with 1763 cases reported there today in a "very serious jump" all from AFL celebration parties. There are now 14,368 active cases in the state. In NSW there were another 608 new community cases reported today with another 438 not assigned to known clusters. They now have 8,553 active locally acquired cases which is lower, but they had 6 deaths yesterday. Queensland is now reporting two new cases. The ACT has 33 new cases. Overall in Australia, more than 57% of eligible Aussies are fully vaccinated, plus 23% have now had one shot so far. There were two new cases in New Zealand at the border, and 24 more in the community. So far, 49% of eligible Kiwis now have both shots, another 31% the initial shot. So far the New Zealand vaccination effort is faltering slightly (79.4% of Kiwis and rising more slowly) and the Australian is gaining new momentum with theirs now up at 79.6%.

GOLD MIXED
Compared to where this time yesterday, the gold price is up +US$3 at US$1764/oz in early Asian trade. But it is down -US$7 from where the New York market finished earlier in the day.

EQUITIES SEA OF RED EXTENDS
The S&P500 ended its Monday session down -1.3% on Wall Street. The Tokyo market has opened today down more than -3.0%. Hong Kong has opened down -0.6% after yesterday's large retreat. Shanghai is missing all this be being on holiday and won't reopen until Friday. The ASX200 is down -0.7% in early afternoon trade. The NZX50 is down -1.2% in late trade here.

SWAP & BONDS RATES MIXED
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. They probably flattened slightly. 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 up +1 bp at 0.62% in advance of tomorrows OCR decision. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is now at 1.51% and up +3 bps from this time yesterday. The China Govt 10yr is now at 2.89% and unchanged. The New Zealand Govt 10 year rate is now at 2.00%, unchanged, but back above the earlier RBNZ fix for that rate at 1.98% (-2 bps). The US Govt ten year is now at 1.48% and up +2 bps from this time yesterday..

NZ DOLLAR LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar is now back up to 69.4 USc. Against the Aussie we are holding at 95.5 AUc. Against the euro we are firm at 59.8 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now just on 73.1, and back in the middle of the 72-74 range we have been in for most of the past eleven months.

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BITCOIN FIRMS
The bitcoin price is now at US$49,185 and up +2.9% above where we were this time yesterday. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been moderate-to-high at just on +/- 3.0%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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