A review of things you need to know before you go home Monday; Jobs demand strong, who has a second job, Throne speech date set, Southern Response loses class action ruling, swap rates slip, NZD firms, bitcoin at new record

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.)

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