A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; ASB ups mortgage rates, rents fall in ChCh, used car imports hit 12yr high, another affordability issue, Truckometer steady, swaps rate up, NZD down

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
ASB has announced it will raise rates for most of its fixed rate specials. Details here.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
The local branch of Bank of India has cut most of its term deposit rates, more closely aligning them with other local banks.

RENTS FALL IN CHRISTCHURCH
Median rents, as revealed by MBIE's Tenancy Bond Service, were largely unchanged in September for 3 bedroom houses. But there are some noticeable and surprising falls for two bedroom flats. The fall in Christchurch in fact was quite large. It is down $20 to $300/week. Maybe the substantial increase in new house-building in the Garden City post earthquake is overdone and giving tenants there new value opportunities.

COMMODITY PRICES DIVERGE
The latest commodity price reports from the IMF for metals show that prices are pretty stable for most base metal, although rises are starting to add up for lead, tin and zinc. The reports for chicken and pork prices show continuing weakness.

A TWELVE YEAR HIGH
Used car imports were strong in September, complimenting the new car and commercial vehicle flows. There were 12,564 used car imports added to our roads in the month, which is the highest for a September since 2004.

ANOTHER AFFORDABILITY STRESS
David Norman at Westpac published a useful assessment of the healthcare and social support services sector which is growing rapidly. He notes that public expectations of the sector will continue to outstrip available funds, and offers six specific policy actions that could at least partially offset the funding constraints.

STILL POINTING TO STEADY GROWTH
ANZ's Truckometer index was out today. They report: "The ANZ Heavy Traffic Index eased 1.4% in September after a 6.8% bounce in August. The index is trending upward but at a slower rate than earlier in the year. The Light Traffic Index lifted 0.4% m/m, maintaining its very strong trend. The economy has been outperforming the signal from the Heavy Traffic Index in recent months. This perhaps reflects recent strains in the dairy sector, which, while having some influence on traffic volumes, have not led to materially softer GDP growth. We are therefore not reading too much into the recent flattening, particularly given that the Light Traffic Index continues to test the speed limit."

MUCH LOWER THAN RECORD LOWS
You may remember some embarrassing data flaws in the Australian labour force statistics that occurred a year or so ago. Now there is a new issue, but not so much with the ABS as with banks who reported lending to first-home buyers. The number of them in Australia is actually much lower than previously reported, despite already being close to record lows.

WHOLESALE RATE RISE PACE SLOWS
There were more rises for local swap rates today, although not at the same pace as saw earlier in the week. They are up +1 bp for for terms 2-5 years, up +2 bps for seven and ten years. The 90-day bank bill is down -1 bp to 2.19%. You can find our chart for all terms of swap rates here. NZGB rates inched higher for a few maturities.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar has held its lower levels today. The NZD/USD is now at 71.6 USc. On the cross rates, it is trading at 94.1 AUc, and is at 63.9 euro cents. The TWI-5 is 75.1. Check our real-time charts here.

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