A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; no rate changes, truckometer mixed, inflation rises, petrol eats up retail sales, electricity reviewed, swaps and NZD becalmed

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Update: Both ANZ and TSB reduced fixed homne loan rates today. See details here.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either.

MIXED MESSAGES
NGĀ KARERE PAI
ANZ sees 'mixed messages' in its August truckometer data. The light truck version is 'steady', perhaps losing momentum, the heavy truck version suggests growth is still there.

I PIKI AKE TE TĀMI AHUMONI
INFLATION CLIMBED UPWARDS
The ANZ inflation monitoring came in with their rate rising to +2.8% pa. The ANZ economists say this is as they expected, due to temporary factors. "But with GDP growth expected to soften, we don’t see this persisting into the medium term."

FUEL COSTS BITE HARD
HE UAUA TE UTU O TE HINU
After mis-signaling retail sales in the June quarter, the electronic card transaction data has suffered a bit of a black eye. The April to June monthly data indicated weakish retail sales, but the quarterly June retail sales data was surprisingly strong (even if it was bolstered by higher costs for petrol). Today we got August electronic transaction data. That was surprisingly strong, up +5.8% from August 2017. But again, it is the higher cost of petrol (especially the extra Auckland regional fuel tax) that is pushing these numbers up. So higher retail sales is no longer necessarily a 'good' measure of consumers wanting to spend more. In July, fuel costs rose +11.9% year-on-year, and now in August that are up +12.7%.

HE HIAHIA NUI
A MEDDLING IMPULSE
The Electricity Price Review report was released today. At first glance it appears to be a bit of a beat-up. It found that residential costs hadn't risen since 2015, but most of the increases came before that and during the Clark/Cullen government when electricity was supplied by 100% SOEs! Costs for people with bad credit, or don't or won't shop around, have risen. Apparently this is a bad thing and the-Government-must-do-something. Costs for commercial users have fallen, but for industrial users costs have risen. It seems to describe a market that is finally working, giving price signals based on demand pressures. But the Minister wants to force those 'benefits' on those that don't or won't seek them. One-way price regulation will be a step that undermines the progress.

HELP WANTED
TE HIAHIA ĀWHINA
I don't speak or write te Reo and maybe that is obvious from the headlines above. Please add corrections in the comment section below, and I will update. I would like to get them right. (H/T to ANZ for seeding the idea in their inflation report.)

SWAP RATES UNCHANGED
Swap rates are virually unchanged again today. The UST 10yr is holding at 2.94% and has shows very little volatility over the past 24 hours. But the UST 2yr yield is rising slowly and that has put the UST 2-10 curve down at +22 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.59% (unchanged), the China Govt 10yr is at 3.69% (up another +2 bp), while the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.60%, also up another +2 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.89%.

BITCOIN LITTLE CHANGED
The bitcoin price is at US$6,348 and virtually the same as at this time yesterday. And we should also note that after the NY close, gold has tracked lower, now down to US$1,192 in Aussie trading.

NZD BECALMED
The NZD is also little changed at 65.3 USc. On the cross rates we are holding at 91.8 AUc, and softer at 56.3 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 unchanged at 69.2 and still near is recent lows.

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