A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; some rate changes, 5 mln closer, weaker manufacturing, weaker commercial vehicle sales, soaking up cheap money, swaps unchanged, NZD soft

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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