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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday: We're trucking along, S&P gets negative on Australia, our eyes are on the RBNZ, Labour eyes emergency housing, dollar and swap rates up

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday: We're trucking along, S&P gets negative on Australia, our eyes are on the RBNZ, Labour eyes emergency housing, dollar and swap rates up

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes so far today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes so far today.

OUR ECONOMY IS TRUCKING ALONG
The ANZ's monthly tracking of the economy through the activity of the trucking industry (the ANZ Truckometer) revealed a pickup in light traffic activity in June, signalling a continuation of strong economic momentum along the road. Both the Heavy Traffic Index (up 4.7%) and the Light Traffic Index (up 2.8%) lifted during the month.

S&P RATINGS AGENCY GETS NEGATIVE ON AUSTRALIA
Ratings agency S&P has re-affirmed for now the prized AAA/A-1+ ratings for our across-the-ditch neighbours, but switched the outlook to negative, reflecting its view that prospects for improvements in budgetary performance have weakened following the recent [they don't say messy - but I will] election outcome and saying there's a 1-in-3 chance the ratings will be cut within the next two years. A cut will happen if S&P believes that parliament is unlikely to legislate savings or revenue measures sufficient for the general government sector budget deficit to narrow materially and to be in a balanced position by the early 2020s.

RBNZ WATCH
The RBNZ's Deputy Governor Grant Spencer is speaking about macro-prudential policy and housing market risk with expectations he will at least foreshadow the central bank's next move on the over-heating house market. Interest.co.nz will be closely following what Spencer says, so, please, keep checking back on this site for updates.

MANUFACTURERS, EXPORTERS GET IN EARLY
Ahead of the Spencer speech the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association said it hoped to hear a plan for additional action from the RBNZ to curb investor lending and ensure loans are well funded to protect against building financial stability risks. NZMEA Chief Executive Dieter Adam says rising house prices continue to add financial stability risk to our economy, damage working families’ ability to access affordable housing and tie the RBNZ's hands from acting on our rising and overvalued currency.

LABOUR HAS LITTLE ON HOUSES
And, yes, more on houses: Labour leader Andrew Little has announced what will be a three part housing policy culminating in the 'big' launch on Sunday. Part 1 was that a Labour Government would spend $60 million over four years to fund Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to pay for the provision of an extra 1,400 beds to house 5,100 homeless people a year.

THAT'S REALLY SUPER LEADERSHIP
The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, the Crown Entity that manages the $30 billion NZ Super Fund, is the winner of the Leadership Excellence category at the Deloitte IPANZ Public Sector Excellence Awards 2016. The Guardians was recognised for a long-term project to enhance organisational culture, improve leadership capability and develop talent across the entire Guardians staff.

DISCUSSING TAX
A discussion document released today could simplify taxpayers’ end-of-year processes while improving accuracy in the system, says Revenue Minister Michael Woodhouse. “The discussion document, Investment income information, is the sixth in a series of public consultation documents and seeks to improve the administration of tax on income earned from investments,” Mr Woodhouse says. See it here.

SWAP RATES RISE
The swap market firmed on the back of a rise in offshore rates – the curve steepened a little with the short end up 3bps, the middle up 2bps and the long end up 1bp. The benchmark 10-yr US Treasury bounced off its lows and was up 3bps to 1.39%. NZ Government bond yields opened substantially lower with the 2020, 2021 & 2023 maturities all yielding well below 2%. NZ swap rates are here. The 90-day bank bill rate is unchanged at 2.42%.

NZ DOLLAR HIGHER AGAIN
The NZ dollar actually started the day lower against its US counterpart but was given a boost in early afternoon trading following the S&P statement (see further up article) that Australia faces the prospect of losing its vaunted AAA rating. S&P Global Ratings lowered its outlook on the country's debt to negative.The NZD is at 71.4 USc, 95.2 AUc, 55.2 UK pence and 64.4 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now just over 74.99. Check our real-time charts here.

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

Daily exchange rates

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Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
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Source: RBNZ
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Source: RBNZ
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End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

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