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A review of things you need to know before you go home Monday; some rate changes, FMA tackles CFD risk, house listing surge, surprise fall in Aussie retail, swaps and NZD unchanged - except AUD falls

A review of things you need to know before you go home Monday; some rate changes, FMA tackles CFD risk, house listing surge, surprise fall in Aussie retail, swaps and NZD unchanged - except AUD falls

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank has raised its 1 year fixed mortgage rate by +10 bps to 4.69%. AMP Home Loans has made the same change (but not NZHL yet).

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
NZCU South has raised its three year TD offer to 4.20%. BNZ has cut both its BusinessFirst call and its FarmFirst call rate by -10 bps to 0.25%.

MISUNDERSTOOD RISK
The FMA is moving to tighten oversight of short-term derivative products such as binary options and contracts-for-difference (CFDs). 42% of all complaints the FMA receives are from such products.

MARCH BRINGS SURGE IN HOMES LISTED
Residential property becoming a buyer's market as rush of new listings and rising stock of properties for sale give buyers more choice. The national weeks of inventory is now 16.6 weeks. In Auckland it is up to 19 weeks its highest level since 2012, in Hamilton it is stable at 14.6 weeks, in Tauranga it is now at 16.2 weeks, in Wellington its stable at 9 weeks, in Christchurch it is 18.6 weeks, and in Dunedin it is just 10.6 weeks of inventory at the current sales rate.

OUT OF FASHION?
In a surprise result, Australian retail turnover fell -0.1% in February from January in seasonally adjusted terms. Analysts were expecting a rise of +0.3% so the miss is quite marked. Their currency fell on the news. The biggest tumble was in clothing, falling -2.9%, and footwear and personal accessories, down -1.9%. Trading in household goods fell -0.4%. Within that group, furniture and houseware dried up the most, with sales declining -2.5%. Year-on-year in actual terms, sales were down -0.5%.

RESPONSIBLE LENDING?
And staying in Australia, their regulator ASIC is clamping down on how interest-only mortgage lending is sold. They are claiming there is evidence borrowers are being up-sold into these higher rate products.

WHOLESALE RATES UNCHANGED
Wholesale swap rates are essentially unchanged today, although both the one year and ten year rates have slipped by -1 bp. The 90 day bank bill is also unchanged at 2.00%.

NZ DOLLAR UNCHANGED
The NZD is also unchanged from this morning at 70.1 USC. On the cross rates, against the AUD and EUR we now trade at 92.1 AUc and 65.6 euro cents respectively. For the TWI-5 we are still at 75.2.

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

Daily exchange rates

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Source: CoinDesk

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17 Comments

Did the results come through for national rents?

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Were expecting them, but no, not yet. Data is as supplied by MBIE. (We buy the granular monthly stuff, rather than use the public 6 month averages that they publish.)

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Thanks

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Interesting propaganda being inserted into the newspapers on just how achievable it is for first home buyers
http://nzh.tw/11830874
Who would be behind such optimistic worldviews?

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none of them are typical but rather those that had an advantage, builder building his own house getting other tradies to work on it in exchange for labour, someone earning 200K a year using the tax system to her advantage to build equity , parents letting children house for six months every year for free while they are away

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Agree wholeheartedly.

I think as part of these stories they should actually disclose their full financials. For example - she billed over $200k. Sacrificed everything for 18 months, and still only saved about 40K in that time for the deposit. Doesn't really seem like she sacrificed much.

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What gets me is that the Herald seem to be portraying buying a house in Auckland to be like some type of nirvana that will provide life-long happiness or access to some privileged club.

When the reality is that buying into this $1mill market could well send you into the fiery pits of financial hell.

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Just as soon as the supply of credit or suckers runs out. NZH are hard at work keeping the suckers on the farm.

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Lots of suckers out there about to get sucked away.
Love the term 'Sucker'. Was re-reading Black Swan, Taleb uses that term well.

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Best quote :
"So they changed their priorities and began working and saving hard, and within a year managed to save a 20 per cent deposit for four-bedroom Matamata property, which they bought in February 2015 for $330,000.

Just last week, they sold it for $410,000.

But Clayton said they didn't buy it to make money, but more so that they could use it to leverage a mortgage on an Auckland property - which they managed just three months later."

So, obviously a complete coincidence that they sold it less than one month after the brightline test (2 year period) expired ... for a $80k (24%) profit... sure. IRD, hope you're investigating!

What's a financial security consultant anyway? Not sure how secure it is to get financial advice from someone with no education who had to borrow money for rent. Nice wicket eh.

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Maybe 'financial security consultant' is a euphemism for bank robber?? Because that part of the story really didn't add up.

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I googled it, it's not even a thing.

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Well, I'm sure there's nothing shady about suddenly having a lot of money because a $200,000 job that doesn't actually exist miraculously fell into your lap ...

IRD really should have a look at this.

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Things you need to know.....Oh gee...whatever happened to Ge

Muddy Waters.....very murkey.

A diary of a Dairy Co plunging deeper into the red.... Skipping China..for Honk Conk...

Today's lament. ?.

A directors lament, a heads up...and done a runner...an apocryphal story of freezing...the milk supply.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-03/four-huishan-dairy-d…

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-03-30/huishan-as-cash-co…

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And these types and origins of companies are digging deeply into NZ supply chains, farms and marketing arms. NZ should be very careful of its involvements.

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And staying in Australia, their regulator ASIC is clamping down on how interest-only mortgage lending is sold. They are claiming there is evidence borrowers are being up-sold into these higher rate products.

Untempered, state sponsored credit creation is getting in the way of what should be a functional economy.

Australia Home Prices Rise Most in 7 Years Amid Bubble Concern

Australian house prices rose the most in almost seven years in March as the country’s housing boom accelerated.

Average home values in Australia’s eight state and territory capitals rose 12.9 percent in the 12 months through March, the fastest pace since May 2010, according to data from CoreLogic Inc. released Monday.

The boom is being led by Sydney, where average house values surged 18.9 percent in the past 12 months, the most since November 2002. Sydney home values climbed 5 percent in the first three months of the year. Read more

It's about time the Australian authorities implemented a stable money policy.

Bretton Woods II ?

If Russia - the world's fourth largest gold producer after China, Japan and the US - is indeed set to become a major supplier of gold to China, the probability of a scenario hinted by many over the years, namely that Beijing is preparing to eventually unroll a gold-backed currency, increases by orders of magnitude. Read more

I will be in immediately, if it get's realised.

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With 19 weeks of housing stock for sale where is the housing crisis?

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