Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.
TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
BNZ cut its online call rate from 0.75% to 0.55% and their one month term deposit rate to 0.90% from 1.00%.
COMMODITY PRICES HOLD
Commodity prices in May are at a similar level to what we have seen over the prior four months. ANZ's index lifted by +1.0% in May, but is still back -11.7% y/y. In recent months, prices look to have found a floor that they are now bouncing along. Horticulture prices lifted (+6.2%) in the month with the start of new season crop sales. There were also lifts for seafood (+1.1%), forestry (+0.9%) and meat (+1.5%), making the gains broad-based. In aggregate, dairy prices were stable and aluminium prices slipped a touch (-1.0%). A lower NZD (except if exporting to Australia) provided a further boost for NZD prices, which were up +2.5% in May. This largely reversed the fall in April, leaving annual NZD prices back -3.5% y/y.
BACK TO BREAK-EVEN
The ten month Crown accounts are still in surplus, but only a tiny one (on an OBEGAL basis). These accounts represent a small slippage from the March ones.
WELLINGTON LISTINGS AMAZINGLY TIGHT
Barfoot's Auckland sales and listing data for May out today pointed to rising volumes, but sagging prices. At the same time, realestate.co.nz listing inventory data for the whole country showed that listing inventories are at record lows of 12 weeks. In Auckland they are just 9 weeks, in Wellington an amazingly low 5 weeks, and in Christchurch they are 15 weeks.
STRONG CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY
The value of residential building work in Auckland grew +13% in the March 2016 quarter compared with the December 2015 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. Auckland residential construction topped $1 bln for the first time with another half-billion of non-residential work. Every week this quarter about $120 mln worth of building work was put in place in Auckland. Nationally, the actual value of all building activity in the March 2016 quarter was $4.4 bln, comprising $2.8 bln of residential work and $1.6 bln of non-residential work.
USED IMPORTS SELL STRONGLY TOO
We have reported the strong commercial vehicle sales in May elsewhere with very healthy new car sales as well. Today we got data on the sales of used imports and they also are running at a strong rate. At 12,567 in May 2016, that is +12% above the level of May 2014
SWAP RATES LOWER AND FLATTER
Following Wall Street, local wholesale swap rates fell and flattened further today. The 1-5 curve is back to just +17 bps, the flattest it has been in over a year. The 2-10 is flatter too, now at just +57 bps which is its lowest since May 2015. NZ swap rates are here. The 90-day bank bill rate fell as well, now back -2 bps to 2.40%.
NZ DOLLAR HOLDING ON
The Kiwi dollar holding on to the gains from midweek. Is now at 68.2 USc, at 94.3 AUc, and 61.2 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now at 72.3. Check our real-time charts here.
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Daily exchange rates
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9 Comments
"Salvation Army: MSD homeless visits didn't happen and the PM's wrong"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80725620/salvation-army-msd-ho…
The smiling assassin strikes again
The government says: 'New Zealand's current target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. The new post-2020 target is equivalent to 11 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.'
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/climate-change/reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions…
However, government transport policies and government economic growth policies (amongst other things) are geared to promoting increased dependence on fossil fuels and increased emissions, and are therefore in direct conflict with supposed environmental policy: 'Today we got data on the sales of used imports and they also are running at a strong rate. At 12,567 in May 2016, that is +12% above the level of May 2014.'
There is every reason to believe that the farcical situation of having mutually exclusive (contradictory) polices promoted will continue both in NZ and overseas, and that the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2, along with the planetary meltdown that is a natural consequence of contradictory emission polices, will continue to accelerate.
Daily CO2
June 1, 2016: 407.08 ppm
June 1, 2015: 403.12 ppm
Up 3.96 ppm (versus 2005-2014 average of 2.11 ppm)
Indeed, very disturbing trends have been revealed over the past 6 months, not only of record high CO2 levels but also the normal seasonal peak being passed with little [downward] change in levels. :
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-b…
The unprecedented meltdown of the Arctic region which is a consequence of elevated atmospheric CO2 ontinues, of course, and has recently been accompanied by unprecedented flooding in Europe, increased torrential rain episodes being another consequence of elevated atmospheric CO2..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-shuts-louvre-museu….
What we have been witnessing is a mere taste if what is to come, of course, as industrial nations slowly 'commit suicide' via fossil fuel addition.
David Chaston must be snorting his coco pops this morning , whilst reviewing his fed beige books and his ISM releases , as the US payroll numbers came in .This mornings numbers and the revisions spoke for themselves ,even when sourced from an uber bull site .NZD back towards 70 US.
If anyone was "worried" about the Verizon strike taking away 35,000 jobs from the pro forma whisper number of 200,000 with consensus expecting 160,000 jobs, or worried about a rate hike by the Fed any time soon, you can sweep all worries away: moments ago the BLS reported that in May a paltry 38,000 jobs were added, a plunge from last month's downward revised 123K (was 160K). The number was the lowest since September 2010!
The household survey was just as bad, with only 26,000 jobs added in May, bringing the total to 151,030K. This happened as the number of unemployed tumbled from 7,920K to 7,436K driven by a massive surge in people not in the labor force which soared to a record 94,7 million, a monthly increase of over 600,000 workers.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-03/payrolls-huge-miss-only-38000-…
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