A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; some minor rate changes, PSI holds lower, Fletchers pulls back on S&T, Fitch sees bigger deficit, phishing risk, swaps fall, NZD holds

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
The Police Credit Union has reduced it 1yr fixed rate by -20 bps to 4.39%.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
The Police Credit Union has reduce three selected TD rates by between -5 and -20 bps

EXPANDING, BUT SLOWER
The service sector’s rate of expansion has definitely slowed over the last six months or so according to the BusinessNZ PSI. It recorded a minor uptick in September interrupting a longer trend of slowing expansion - but the sector is still expanding at a reasonably healthy pace, just not as fast as it had been,

LEAVING THEM HANGING
Fletcher Building has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Steel & Tube due to lack of support from Steel & Tube’s Board to progress the plan. This comes after Fletcher raised its bid from $1.70 to $1.90/share this morning. FBU shares are down -1.3%, STU share haven't traded today after finishing Friday at $1.50.

WORSENING C/A DEFICIT
Ratings agency Fitch has significantly raised its estimate of near term current account deficits, but seem them easing further out. They forecast it to come in at -3.0% of GDP in 2018 and -2.5% in 2019. They had previously expected a sizable improvement from 2017.

PHISHING RISK
A phishing campaign containing malware is specifically targeting business customers of some New Zealand banks. The phishing emails are branded to look like invoice notifications from common accounting software. Once a user clicks on the attachments or links in the email, malware is downloaded onto the user’s machine. Banks have been notifying their business customers if they are affected. The malware is on the infected computer. The bank’s and the accounting software’s security is unaffected.

DOWN AGAIN
The equities slump has resumed today, but not in China. The Shanghai stock exchange has opened only marginally lower today in early trading. In Tokyo however, they opened earlier and have fallen -1.3% in early trade. The ASX is down -1% to a six month low. The NZX50 is level-pegging.

SWAP RATES DROP
Swap rates are down -2 bps for duration to 4 years and -3 bps for longer. The UST 10yr is lower in off-market trading and now at 3.14%. The UST 2-10 curve has slipped under +30 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.70% (down -5 bps), the China Govt 10yr is at 3.62% (unchanged), while the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.67%, also unchanged. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.89%.

BITCOIN UNCHANGED
The bitcoin price is basically unchanged at US$6,245.

NZD STABLE
The NZD is unchanged its opening this morning at 65 USc. On the cross rates we also unchanged at 91.6 AUc, and 56.3 euro cents. The TWI-5 is at 69.1.

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