Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Heretaunga Building Society have cut their one year and 3 year fixed rates.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank has changed two term deposit rates. Their 200 day rate has been reduced by -20 bps to 3.20%. Their nine month rate has been increased by +15 bps to 3.50%.
BENCHMARK UNDER THE RADAR
In case you missed it, ten days ago our population pushed on up through the 4.9 mln level. By our rough estimate, at current growth rates (+ births, - deaths, + migration) our population will hit 5 mln in September 2019.
GDP LACKS ENERGY IN Q2
On of the last pieces to the GDP result for Q2-2018 was released today, the manufacturing data. Growth is slipping in 2018. June volumes were down -1.6%, and values are up only +6.1% year-on-year, down from +7% in the year to March. But the drop was due to reductions in the energy sector. Maintenance work at the Marsden Point oil refinery, and maintenance and repair work at New Zealand’s Methanex (methanol) plant had a lot to do with those reductions, and they won't be permanent. Considering that, today's data is actually pretty resilient. Analysts expect GDP to undershoot the +2.7% growth rate recorded in March.
WEAKER THAN EXPECTED
Infometrics has been looking at the sales activity for commercial vehicles. They report: "Commercial vehicle sales remain more subdued than we expected, with businesses seeming to be unwilling to invest to the same degree as in previous quarters. Although new light commercial vehicle sales ticked up slightly last month to sit 1.2% higher than in August 2017, the three-month sales total is still 1.8% lower than a year earlier. The poor June Fieldays result is a key reason for this drop."
GOING TO THE WELL AGAIN
NZX listed industrial property landlord Property for Industry (PFI) says it is considering raising new 7 year debt. PFI already has a seven year bond it raised in November 2017 which netted $100 mln. with a coupon of 4.59% that originally yielded 4.45%. Those earlier bonds now yield about 3.85%.
BONANZA
A Canadian gold miner in outback Western Australia as made a very rare and very rich discovery.
SWAP RATES UNCHANGED
Swap rates are virually unchanged today. The UST 10yr is holding at 2.94% ahead of Wall Street's opening. The UST 2-10 curve has dipped under +24 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.59% (up +4 bps), the China Govt 10yr is at 3.67% (up +2 bp), while the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.58%, up +2 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp to 1.89%. (The record low is 1.86% in December 2017.)
BITCOIN SOFT
The bitcoin price is at US$6,310 and down -1.8% from where we left it on Saturday morning.
NZD LOWER
The NZD has slipped to 65.2 USc. On the cross rates we are holding at 91.7 AUc, and softer at 56.4 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 slightly lower at 69.2 and near is recent lows.
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14 Comments
Re: Bonanza, here a Dutch youtube clip, English subs, on that find.
Willem Middelkoop interviewed on Dutch TV.
If that find is as big as he thinks, it will be enormous.
The populist Sweden Democrats party, with the largest vote upswing earlier today, picked up more than one-in-six votes in the general elections today to finish 3rd in what is being termed as a hung election. The party has vowed to sink any Cabinet that does not heed to its demands, particularly on immigration.
Things are going to get a lot more interesting as Europe continues to disintegrate over the ongoing migrants crisis.
https://www.france24.com/en/20180909-sweden-exit-poll-hands-sweden-cent…
This is interesting if true.
https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-massive-turkish-army-c…
Nearly 5 mln...No wonder NZ has housing, infrastructure deficit. Stats NZ has consistently under projected. In 2001 projection 5 mln wasn’t projected till late 2030s, as recently as 2011 projection not till mid 2020s. Hope everyone has enjoyed the wide open spaces and, more importantly, the high resources per capita while we had them.
https://sustainablenz.org/2012/07/20/heading-for-6-million/
This scares me more than a little bit. A concern is that there are many hundreds of thousands of kiwis currently living abroad that can move back to NZ at any time.
There is nothing sustainable about the population increase, whether here, or elsewhere in the world.
A side note, the vast majority of "refugees" are from countries that have had a recent history of population growth on the order of 5% per year. The problems inherent in the large majority of these countries are derived from the large increase in population, and the social/financial challenges that come from an increase in population without a commensurate increase in resources.
Returning Kiwi's are not the issue we face at all... They share our values..... We already suffer from a lack of honesty from migrants, ever seen an eftpos machine at your cheap Saturday Vegy market? We play by rules, others don't... A couple of generations on and you have no tax system or voting block, they breed faster than us...... and we don't want to breed fast enough to compete... It's a reality...... but John and Mike have sold out!
A bit on the partisan side...
The prior government just continued with the earlier prior governments immigration policy. I have some knowledge about this, as I was approved for immigration under the Labour gov policy rules.
And the current government is continuing with similar rules as the prior government.
I despise partisan postings...
Johns labour imports were all about balancing the spike from the 1950's baby boom to keep them happy and paid for.. we now have a surplus of men up to 30 over women and our politics will change because of Chinese in Auckland are forming a voting block. Has the press blinkered the public.... yes, but they were sponsored by the banks and real estate industry who were doing very nicely, thanks....and John and Mike as well.
I have no doubt that you were a valuable addition and have contributed Yankiwi... but you were added before the need to really add numbers to support the spike in welfare that is hitting us now? When you look at the numbers that need supporting who were born from 1948-65 you will get the drift and the immigration stats under John pretty much match the burden of numbers to support the promises...it's like two bulges in a stomach!
The fertility rate... NZ should not be proud of its fertility rate. It has been rather fortunate that so many kiwis do an OE, and then settle overseas. This really reduces the problems associated with the organic population growth domestically (although contributing to the global farmers common problem).
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