A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; a big floating rate cut, weak wholesale trading, more milk price cuts, impressive Japan growth, higher swap rates

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There was a true rarity today - a floating rate reduction. More than that, it was a big reduction of -50 bps. Even better, that floating rate is one of the lowest in the mortgage market. It came from Resimac. Details here. At the same time Resimac launched deposit bonds.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
RaboDirect reduced a number of term deposit interest rates by small amounts. Aotearoa Credit Union did the same.

NOT SPECTACULAR
Wholesale trade in Q1 2015 came in quite weak. Low import prices would have had am effect. But stocks are higher suggesting sluggishness.

SYNLAIT'S GUESS
Synlait Milk today reduced its 2014/15 season milk payout indication to "$4.40 to $4.60" and have an indication for the 2015/16 season of $5.50/kgMS.

JAPAN RISING ?
Japan's Q1 GDP growth was expected to be at a very creditable +2.8% rate, but it has blitzed that expectation coming in at +3.9%. Go Japan! Impressive momentum. Perhaps a tick for Abenomics. Just ignore the debt and money printing necessary to get there.

5.17% ENOUGH FOR BBB+ ?
Goodman Property Trust has launched a $75 mln bond issue, with the option to go to $100 mln. They will pay swap plus a margin in the range of 1.25 to 1.4%. They are seven year bonds and today's swap rate is 3.92%. If that is the rate when they are issued, they will yield at least 5.17% pa.

DIGGING DEEPER
“There are lots of financial questions policy makers, businesses and non-government organisations would like answers to: Where do New Zealand businesses source their funds? How much debt do businesses and households have? Is it sustainable? Has the pattern of borrowing and lending changed since the global financial crisis?" These are questions the Government needs answers to (apparently) and is to spend $5.75 mln over four years to find out.

WHOLESALE RATES RISE
Interest rate swaps have risen today especially at the long end. The 90 day bank bill rate is lower today by -2 bps at 3.46% giving up Friday's rise. NZ Govt bond yields are unchanged today. The muted response might be because Australia is on holiday today and as is usual on Mondays, Europe and the US have not opened yet.

NZ DOLLAR DON'T
Those closed markets are undoubtedly the reason our currency value has hardly changed today. The New Zealand dollar is still at 70.4 USc, 92.6 AUc, 63.5 euro cents, and the TWI-5 is at 75. Check our real-time charts here.

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