A review of things you need to know before you go home Tuesday; many rate changes, lower house prices, more for sale, Ardern to lead Labour, a huge Chinese problem, swap rates rise, NZD holds

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Following Kiwibank yesterday, SBS Bank has added +10 bps to their floating rate taking it to 5.89%. They also added +10 bps to their reverse equity loan product, raising that to 7.55%.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank added a new 8 month TD special at 3.70% but trimmed its 12 and 18 month rates. RaboDirect cut its RaboSaver rate to 2.30%, down from 2.50%. FE Investments added a new nine month 5.50% offer along with a new two year offer at 6.50%. NZCU Baywide trimmed its six month rate by -10 bps to 3.90%.

PRICES DOWN, INVENTORIES BUILDING
According to the July data from realestate.co.nz, the average asking prices in Auckland are down by nearly -$75,000 since February. The downturn in Auckland's housing market is starting to spread to the rest of the country. New listings on realestate.co.nz at their lowest level in 10 years. The weeks of unsold inventory is basically stable at 17.1 weeks nationally, but is up to 23 weeks in Auckland, is only 6.4 weeks in Wellington, and fairly stable at 17.4 weeks in Christchurch. Hamilton as 14.9 weeks, Tauranga is similar at 14.8 weeks, and Napier/Hastings are at just 8 weeks.

'WORST JOB IN POLITICS'?
The big local news today was the leadership change in the Labour Party, just 52 days out from the General Election. You can add your view here by taking our survey (you don't need to register or sign in for this one).

A BiG BLACK HOLE
Apparently there are "around 300,000 to 500,000 trusts operating in New Zealand today" according to the Government. With a range like that, clearly no-one really knows. The Government is to update the law on trusts, but we need to ask how many we really need for purposes other than dodging tax or other social obligations.

DIDN'T GET THE MEMO
Dwelling prices are still rising fast in Australia. The efforts of their regulators to cool prices haven't worked yet. Annual growth in prices accelerated to +10.5%, from +9.6%, and back toward the peak of +12.9% reached early in the year. Melbourne prices are up +15.9% in a year in July; Sydney prices are up +12.4% on the same basis. Al the same, this same data points to a slowdown, and a two-tier market with weaker price trends outside the two dominant cities.

A CHINESE PICKUP?
In China, their private sector factory PMI report was actually more positive than their official one. Operating conditions faced by Chinese manufacturers improved at a slightly quicker pace in July. Companies indicated that both output and new orders rose at the fastest rates for five months, helped by a solid upturn in new export sales. At the same time, inflationary pressures ticked up, with both input prices and output charges rising at faster rates than in June. Despite all this, the PMI is only just in expansion territory.

A BIG FUTURE CHINESE PROBLEM
Just as the riot act is being read to governors of China's largest cities for failing to get on top of their pollution problems, another official is warning that they face very large issues in the future with the wholesale adoption of photo-voltaic panels. When they reach the end of their useful life, China will have mountains of them and there is currently no way to dispose or recycle them. The country’s cumulative capacity of retired panels would reach up to 70 gigawatts (GW) by 2034. That is three times the scale of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower project. By 2050 these waste panels would add up to 20 million tonnes, or 2,000 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower, according to a report.

WHOLESALE RATES RISE
Rates are up +2 bps for all terms from 2 years to 10 years. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.95%.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is unchanged from this time yesterday at 75.2 USc although it had sunk and then risen in-between times. On the cross rates we are also lower at 93.6 AUc and at 63.6 euro cents. The TWI-5 is at 77.4. The bitcoin price is up +5.2% on the day at US$2,852.

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