A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; rate cuts galore, NZD bonds popular, food prices rise, fast population growth; wholesale rates fall

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There was a serious flurry of changes today. ASB kicked it off with changes that included a 5 year 5.75% rate, the lowest in the market. Kiwibank and Westpac also cut rates although none were market leading. Late in the morning HSBC trumped nearly everyone with a flat 5.29% rate for all terms 1 to five years. Only SBS has a lower rate, their 5.19% for 2 years. Reductions from other banks are expected next week.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Rate reductions came today from ASB for all terms 6 months to 5 years. We are expecting rate cuts from Kiwibank on Monday as well.

NZD BOND ISSUES POPULAR
ANZ has reviewed the bond and Kauri market (NZD denominated bond issued by offshore entities, often supranationals like the World Bank). They report that January was a record month for the Kauri market, with a whopping $2.1 bln of issuance. Given pricing relatives, such strong issuance comes as no surprise, but the market does feel somewhat “flooded” near term, they say. Domestic issuance was confined to just two deals total ling $200m. February is a fairly light month for bond maturities, but things ramp up in March and peak in April. 

FOOD PRICES RISE
Food prices rose +1.3% in January. This follows a +0.3% rise in December and a -0.5% fall in November. Seasonally higher fruit and vegetable prices were partly countered by lower prices for chicken, energy drinks, and yogurt.

MONEY MAKING MONEY
The foreign exchange markets turned over NZ$190 bln in January according to data out from the RBNZ. That's more than $8 bln per working day.

LIFE AFTER POLITICS
Former Health minister Tony Ryall has been appointed to the NZ board of Aussie health insurer NIB. He is also currently the Head of Public Policy with the commercial law firm, Simpson Grierson.

FASTEST GROWTH IN 11 YEARS
Our national population rose +77,900 in the year to January according to data released by Statistics NZ today. There are now 4,553,700 of us. The growth rate in 2014 was +1.74% which is the highest growth rate since 2003. It's as though we added a city the size of Whangarei, or New Plymouth or Palmerston North last year. At this rate, we will have a population of 5 mln by 2019, and 6 mln by 2029. We would hit 10 mln by 2059 if we kept growing at the 2014 rate.

LOW CREDIT STRESS
We track credit stress in a number of ways. One is the weekly bankruptcy stats from the ITS which show very low levels of bankruptcies, net asset procedures, and insolvencies.

WHOLESALE RATES FALL
After yesterday's consolidation today saw our interest rate swap market lower. Most terms were down -4 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged however at 3.64%.

NZ DOLLAR RISES
Check our real-time charts here. The NZ dollar has gone up today because the US dollar has struggled following poor jobs and retail data out overnight. We are now at 74.3 USc, at 95.9 AUc , and the TWI is at 77.6.

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