A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; a TD rate cut, a credit card rate cut, Japan & China data impresses, swaps unchanged, comparing the US rate curve, NZD firm-ish

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Asset Finance has made some chunky rate reductions for TD's of 18 months and longer.

CREDIT CARD CHANGES
Yes! After years of inactivity, we have one today. ANZ has reduced its Visa cash advances interest rate by -2.00% to 20.95%, which takes it down to the same level as its Purchase rate on most cards. No other credit card rates changed however.

JAPANESE UPSIDE
Japan's balance of payments surplus rose +5% in May from April. This is notable because analysts were expecting more than a -30 fall. The world's third largest economy is trucking along ok. The huge deficits we always hear about are internal ones, not deficits with the rest of the world (as many readers assume).

RESERVES BOLSTERED
And China has announced that its June foreign currency reserves rose marginally, when again analysts were picking a marginal fall. They were up a tiny US$1.5 bln.

NO WORRIES
Apart from the NZX, which is down -0.3%, almost all other markets open in our timezone are up, and some major ones are up strongly. Tokyo is up +1.3%, Hong Kong is up +1.5% and Shanghai is up +1.6%. Even Australia is up, even if it is just a tine +0.1%.

SWAP RATES UNCHANGED
Local swap rates are virtually unchanged today (apart from a -1 bp slip for the 1 year duration). The UST 10yr is now at 2.84%, unchanged from Friday but up +2 bps from this morning. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.61, up +1 bp, the China Govt 10yr is at 3.56% (up +3 bps), and the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.85%, up +4 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp to 1.97%.

RATE CURVE COMPRESSING
Many analysts are showing concernes over the narrowing-and-narrowing of the US 2-10 rate curve. This afternoon it is at +28.7 bps which is more than a 10 year low and has more than halved since the beginning of 2017. This is widely thought to indicate investors think a recession is on the horizon. But how do other economies compare?. China's 2-10 curve is +36.5 bps, similar to where it was at the beginning of February 2018. Australia's 2-10 curve is now at +.61.8 bps, and that is similar to where it was in early April. The New Zealand 2-10 bps is now at 100.5 bps and little changed from any level this year. In truth, it is only the US yield curve that is narrowing, something that started in earnest when the latest eye-popping deficit-heavy Federal Budget was signed off. A bear market may be coming, but investors bet it will only be in the US.

BITCOIN LOWER
The bitcoin price is now at US$6,698 which is -1% lower than where we were this morning.

NZD FIRM-ISH
The NZD is firm at 68.4 USc. On the cross rate we are at 91.7 AUc and 58.2 euro cents. That has the TWI-5 at 71.5. These levels represent little change from this morning but a rise from Friday.

This chart is animated here. For previous users, the animation process has been updated and works better now.