A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; wholesale trade growing, stocks under control, Hirepool to float, Spurway reaches the top, swap rates rise

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

WHOLESALE TRADE GROWING
First quarter 2014 wholesale trade grew slower than Q4 2013. It came in +3.2% although that was much better than the less than +0.1% growth a year ago. Stocks are under much better control than a year ago, growing only at +1.5%, well down from the 5% spurt in March 2013. This data is among the final bits of the upcoming GDP data due out mid month.

THE END
Making sure new tax laws accomplish the legislative intent and are in plain English has been the job of the Rewrite Advisory Panel, an expert group set up in 1995 (!). It has completed 176 public submissions and passed through 80% of that work for legislative correction. 500 other corrections have been done. Now the Government is winding up this group. Sunset has arrived.

LABOUR PROPOSES AN INSURANCE COURT
It wants to establish a special division of the Canterbury Dirstict Court to handle insurance disputes of up to $1 million. The Insurance Council says 'be careful what you wish for'.

OUR BANK'S EXPOSURE TO CHINA
Exposure to China by Asia Pacific banks is the subject of a Fitch report released today. That exposure totals US$1.2 trillion with a third of it by Hong Kong banks. Japan and Australia have relatively little exposure - in Australia's case its is 'just 1.2% of the total' or about US$15 billion. Even for them, it is not huge.

HIREPOOL TO BE FLOATED
A big payday is in store for an Aussie private equity firm who have announced that they will be floating Hirepool on the NZX. It will be quite big at around $300 million, for a firm that makes about $25 million in earnings.

FONTERRA MAKES TOP APPOINTMENT
Robert Spurway is to become the [newly created] Managing Director of Global Operations.. Fonterra are co-ordinating their milk production systems internationally although "our primary commitment is to our New Zealand farmer shareholders". Spurway is a kiwi, originally from Dargaville.

A RATE RISE
Heretaunga Building Society has raised its floating mortgage rate to 6.25% from 6.00%.

WHOLESALE RATES
Wholesale swap rates were up by 2 bps today on the back of rising bond yields in New York at the end of last week, but the 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 3.42%.

OUR CURRENCY
The NZ dollar has hardly moved today probably because it is a holiday in Australia and data releases here were especially light. Late this afternoon, the USD is at 85.2 USc, the Aussie is now at 91.1 AUc. The TWI is at 79.3.