Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes reported today.
DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No more changes here either.
JOB DEMAND STRONG
Jobs website Seek said they had +9.6% more new job ads this September than 12 months ago. Nationally, the industries with the highest "opportunities" and their national average advertised annual salaries were: ICT at $97,337, "trades & services" at $59,431 and "manufacturing, transport & logistics" at $64,841.
WHO HAS A SECOND JOB
More than one in 20 people employed have a second job, Stats NZ said today. People who have a second job tend to be middle-aged (aged 45+) or older. In contrast, younger workers tend to hold just one job. About 2.5 mln people were employed in the June 2017 quarter, of which 154,200 (6.1%) said they had two or more jobs, according to the Household Labour Force Survey.
STARTING SOON
New Zealand’s 52nd Parliament will meet on Wednesday 8 November to hear the Speech from the Throne. “Our priorities are to take action to reduce child poverty and inequality, help Kiwis to live in affordable, warm, dry homes, restore funding to our health system so all can access it, expand jobs and opportunities in our regions, make post-secondary school education more affordable, clean up our rivers and play our part in tackling climate change", said the press release accompanying the announcement.
CLASS ACTION AGAINST SOUTHERN RESPONSE TO PROCEED
The Court of Appeal ruled today that "a representative proceeding" (that is, a class action) against insurer, Southern Response can go ahead in the High Court. Southern Response had sought to have the representative action barred primarily on the grounds that the different claims by the individuals in the Group were not sufficiently similar to be dealt with in this way. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument.
MORE SIGNS OF JAPANESE UPTICK
Japan’s retail sales rose at an annual rate of +2.2% in September, the fastest pace in three months and at a rate that will please the Bank of Japan. This is a necessary precursor to rising Japanese consumer inflation (which is still low), and a tight labour market with rising wages are also being talked about for the first time in a long time.
BIGGER THAN TEXAS, MUCH BIGGER
Only in China could a fizzer of this magnitude happen, and the company still be in business. And that is only because it is majority owned by the Chinese state.
WHOLESALE RATES SLIP
Swap rates are following Wall Street lower today. The two year is down -1 bps, the five year is down -2 bps and the ten year is down -3 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.94%.
NZ DOLLAR LITTLE CHANGED
The NZ dollar is now up a little, now trading at 68.6 USc. On the cross rates we are at 89.4 AUc and recovered to 59.1 euro cents. The TWI-5 is still about 71.9. The bitcoin price has pushed up over US$6,000 again to a new record high of US$6,297.50, and now it is at US$6,122, a +3.6% gain on the day. (And this is after it 'forked' with Bitcoin Gold which itself is worth US$137. Bitcoin Cash, an earlier 'fork' is currently worth US$443.)
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12 Comments
NZX50 hits new record too. Inspirational stuff.
Hmmm... Norway bet the house.
Last December we joked that the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund had responded to sinking returns and withdrawals required to fund budget deficits by allocating another $130 billion in assets to what appeared to be an already massively overpriced equity bubble in return for an extra 40bps of "expected average annual real returns" (see: Norway Buying $130 Billion In Global Equities As Sovereign Wealth Fund Continues To Bleed Cash). The extra equity purchases pushed the fund's total equity allocation to a staggering 70% of their $860 billion in assets under management.
Alas, with global equity bubbles becoming ever more bubblier with each passing day, the bet on equities has paid off 'bigly' for Norway so far this year and grew their $1 trillion in AUM by another 3.2%, or a mere $32 billion, in Q3 2017 alone.
As Bloomberg notes this morning, the staggering size of Norway's wealth fund and their seemingly reckless allocation to equities, implies they now own roughly 1% of global stocks.
Auckland doesn't rank in the Top 100 Best cities for transport
Arcadis 2017 Sustainable Cities Mobility Index top 100
https://www.arcadis.com/en/global/our-perspectives/sustainable-cities-m…
Sydney ranks behind Brisbane
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydneys-transport-network-lags-brisbane-in-gl…
On a global measure, Australia's largest city was ranked 51st out of 100 cities around the world, while Brisbane came in at 48th, Canberra 53rd, Melbourne 55th and Perth 87th
It’s going to take more than the biggest stock slump in world history to convince analysts that PetroChina Co. has finally hit bottom.
Ten years after PetroChina peaked on its first day of trading in Shanghai, the state-owned energy producer has lost about $800 billion of market value -- a sum large enough to buy every listed company in Italy, or circle the Earth 31 times with $100 bills.
In current dollar terms, it’s the world’s biggest-ever wipeout of shareholder wealth. And it may only get worse. If the average analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg proves right, PetroChina’s Shanghai shares will sink 16 percent to an all-time low in the next 12 months.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-29/the-biggest-stock-co…
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