A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; Aussie inflation raises their currency, mortgage volumes sag further, Hubbard's trick, wholesale rates rise, and more

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

NO RATE CHANGES
There were no rate changes again today. It's now all up to tomorrow's RBNZ OCR announcement.

AUSSIE INFLATION 3.0%
Today's inflation report across the ditch has it running twice as fast there as here (+1.6% pa over the same period).

HOME LOAN VOLUMES SAG FURTHER
For the first time this year (in a non-holiday week) there was less than $1 bln last week in home loan approvals in the RBNZ C16 series. Values are down -12% on the equivalent quarter a year ago, volumes are down -17%.

A DIFFERENT MORTGAGE PROMOTION
Rather than cash, iPads, or TVs, TSB Bank has a competition offering a meal cooked in your home by a Masterchef winner as the prize.

FONTERRA'S CANPAC SHRINKS
The dairy giant today proposed to cut 114 jobs at its Hamilton distribution centre, rationalising how it moves its product and focusing that unit on nutritionals only. Overall job losses are light nationally, however.

HOW ALLAN HUBBARD WORKED
This from Radio NZ's trial coverage: "It would be a common practice for him to pay down any related party loans that he had the ability to control at the reporting date be it 31 September or 30 June, and then within a few days following the reporting date to draw down that loan again."

WHOLESALE RATES
Wholesale swap rates rose +1 or +2 bps for terms of four years and less. The 90 day bank bill rate was up as well, up +2 bp at 3.67% ahead of tomorrow morning's OCR review. The market 'knows' a +25 bps rise is coming.

OUR CURRENCY
The NZ dollar has moved lower slightly again today. The NZD is now at 86.7 USc. It fell noticeably against the Aussie on their higher CPI and is now just below 92 AUc and the TWI is now at 80.7.

You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.