A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; falling yields and rising asset valuations; finco lawyer guilty; Meridian quits the US; Augusta grows; HSBC cuts

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

FALLING INTEREST RATES
The trend today is for lower interest rates. The UST 10yr benchmark was down sharply overnight and New Zealand wholesale rates followed (see below). Then some institutions announced retail changes, including reductions during today. Details of these are below as well.

MERIDIAN QUITS ITS US SOLAR BUSINESS
Meridian Energy today sold the last part of Meridian Energy USA, a business it bought in 2009 for US$5.4 million. No word on the price it sold for.

CHCH CITY ASSET SALE OPTIONS
The Cameron Partners report has been leaked. It shows that the three largest Christchurch City Council assets could net the city $1.4 billion. As yields fall, that will tend to raise the potential valuations of these assets.

BELGRAVE LAWYER GUILTY OF FRAUD
The SFO has secured a guilty verdict in its prosecution of the Belgrave Finance lawyer over the failure of that finance company.

BIG PROPERTY FUND
Today, Augusta completed its takeover of KCL and a small Bayleys syndication. That makes $118 mln in direct assets, and a business with a portfolio of 150 commercial properties worth $800 million. Falling bond yields tend to spruik commercial property values.

GOVT BOND YIELDS FALL
Latest Government bond tender of $200 million received bids for $566 million with an average weighted yield of 4.11% which is lower than the 4.40% at the previous bond auction.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Westpac dropped its 4 month special, reverting 3.50% from 4%. Asset Finance dropped its 3 and 4 year rates by 25 bps, but raised its 9 and 12 month rates by 25 bps. Liberty Financial cut 10 bps for its offers from 3 mths to 1 year, and raised rates for terms 18 months to 5 years by 5 to 40 bps. Heartland Bank raised its 1 year rate to 4.50%, up by 25 bps.

PERSONAL LOAN RATE REDUCTION
BNZ dropped its Advanced personal loan interest rate from 18.2% down to 17.85%, a drop of 35 bps.

HSBC SETS NEW 3YR HOME LOAN BENCHMARK
HSBC has cut its 3 year fixed mortgage rate to 5.99%, undercutting the previous market standard of 6.25% which had been adopted by most other banks.

WHOLESALE RATES DOWN
Swap rates were all down again today by up to 5 bps flattening the curve noticeably. This follows the sharp reductions in New York early this morning. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.39%.

OUR CURRENCY
The NZ dollar has been basically unchanged during the day with no Budget reaction. The NZD is still at 86.5 USc, 92.4 AUc and the TWI is at 80.4.