A review of things you need to know before you go home Monday; mortgage rate changes, Greens oppose Labour's CPTPP, Tower in halt, Harcourts' volumes fall, exporter confidence strong, swaps up, NZ stable, bitcoin slumps

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank reduced rates for three fixed terms. Details here. BNZ reduced it 3 year 'special' by -10 bps to 4.99%.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.

RURAL BANKING HEAD LEAVES HEARTLAND
Ben Russell, Heartland Bank's head of rural banking for the past two years has left. He's taken a role as deputy CEO at animal health business Argenta Ltd. Prior to Heartland Russell was CEO of Rabobank NZ.

COALITION PARTNER WAIVERS
The TPPA has been resurrected as the CPTPP in an eleven nation deal, without the USA. Today, the Greens said they will oppose the deal. They want the ability to break treaty provisions arbitrarily and not face any consequences (but they still want New Zealand firms to be protected in treaty countries). They are wrapping their opposition around 'democracy', 'climate change' and 'human rights', none of which actually relates to ISDS provisions. But with both Labour and National supporting the new version, the Greens move is just for show.

MORTGAGE SECURITISATION
Resimac NZ's $250 mln "Versailles 2017-1" securitisation of New Zealand mortgages has seen 89% of them rated AAA, 97% of them investment grade. The overall average price was BKBM plus 1.38% for the AAA-rated portion.

TRADING HALT
Insurer Tower's share are in a trading halt with insurer saying it is at an 'advanced stage of finalising underwriting for a capital raising'.

VOLUMES EVAPORATING
Harcourts' is reporting that its sales volumes are down -14% on last year in October, but prices down just -1%. They say prices holding in Auckland and Wellington.

EXPORTERS HAPPY
Over the past year, our currency exchange rate has been relatively high (averaging 75 on the TWI). But that has not inhibited exporters. According to an ExportNZ survey, they are feeling confident and expecting orders to increase in the next twelve months. Optimism is very positive with 71% of New Zealand exporters expecting international orders to increase - this is a jump from 63% in 2016. The research shows that overall 2017 has been a good year, with just over half (55%) of exporters achieving an increase in international orders. Export success is little to do with the exchange rate, much more to do with offering products that foreign customers want to buy. (A low exchange rate just makes everyone, except exporters, poorer.)

WHOLESALE RATES RISE
Swap rates rose for terms of four years and longer. For four years the change is +1 bp, fo five years it is +2 bps, for seven years it is +3 bps, and for ten years it is +4 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.94%.

NZ DOLLAR UNCHANGED, BITCOIN SLUMPS
The NZ dollar is unchanged at 69.2 USc. On the cross rates we are little changed as well at 90.5 AUc and at 59.4 euro cents. The TWI-5 is still at 72.5. The bitcoin price is at US$5,887 now. Remember it was US$7,424 at this time on Friday, so it has had a massive US$1,537 drop over the last three days, a dive of more than -20% in that time. It is down -30% from its peak earlier this month.

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