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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; productivity to cost jobs, Manukau median multiples rise, cheaper Wellington petrol, swaps unchanged, NZD firmer

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; productivity to cost jobs, Manukau median multiples rise, cheaper Wellington petrol, swaps unchanged, NZD firmer

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Heretaunga Building Society cut two short term deposit rates today.

HOW ROBOTISATION ROLLS OUT
The Australian and New Zealand governments are pushing ahead with building standards to allow e-invoicing. Apparently 1.3 bln invoices are passed between commercial suppliers and their clients every year in both countries and the expectation is that seamless transfers of this information will save huge amounts of time and increase productivity. This robotisation will cost many clerks their jobs however and probably completely undermine the postal services, meaning residential customers will be left to carry the cost that business used to subsidise - or the service will be cut back sharply. The e-invoicing initiative is expected to save $30 bln over ten years. Administering the system will involve cost and the system is expected to be 'self-funding' with transactional fees, licensing fees or other user charges. The monopoly system will also allow future governments to tax it, in much the same way petrol is taxed.

UNCHANGED
Today's GlobaDairyTrade auction brough virtually no change to dairy prices.

STRESS SHIFTS SOUTH
Today we updated the median multiple data for our city-by-city review here. Of note is that in Auckland, it is now Manukau houses that cost over 10 times household incomes, with the North Shore slipping back under that level. This is not because incomes are changing too much between the two areas, but because median house prices are slipping on the North Shore, whereas they are still firming in Manukau. And this is even though North Shore prices are still +12% above Manukau median prices. North Shore median incomes are +14% higher than Manukau.

CHEAPER PETROL
Hamilton-based fuel supplier Waitomo Group has today announced plans to open a Waitomo Fuel Stop in central Wellington in early 2019, delivering petrol competition to the capital. It will be an unmanned service station offering cut price fuel.

THE HOME TEAM PROTECTS SELLERS FROM TAKING A BATH
In Shanghai, the 'home team' demand enabled their equity market to open +1% higher today. But since, sellers are taking advantage and those gains are being eroded. By mid morning the index is only up +0.3% and slipping. Meanwhile, the ASX is up +1% and the NZX is up +0.8%. Tokyo is up +1.4%, while Hong Kong is only level-pegging.

SUN BEATS SNOW
The Aussie love affair with Bali is back, with Indonesia beating out New Zealand as their favourite destination in August. But we aren't threatened on a full year basis; its just the mid-winter effect. 200,000+ more Aussies visit New Zealand in a year than Indonesia, an advantage we have held for a while. In the year to August 2016 it was only +110,000.

SWAP RATES FLAT
Swap rates are little changed today. They are down -1 bp for some mid-range durations. The UST 10yr is marginally higher at 3.16%. The UST 2-10 curve is at +30 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.72% (up +2 bps), the China Govt 10yr is at 3.64% (also up +2 bps), while the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.71%, and up +4 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp to 1.90%.

BITCOIN HOLDS
The bitcoin price is pretty much unchanged at US$6,526.

NZD FIRM AGAIN
The NZD rose overnight and has stayed firm during the day. It is now at 65.9 USc. On the cross rates we up at 92.3 AUc, and 56.9 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 up to 69.9.

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18 Comments

New Zealand slipped 2 places to number 16 on WEF's Global Competitiveness Report 2018-19, released earlier today. We retained our number 1 place in institutions but our poor physical infrastructure is still a roadblock in our competitiveness as we stood 28th in utilities and 45th in transport infrastructure.

Australia rose by 1 place to 14th in the report.

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Go the home team. If it's not right then f......g well fix it.
Ah, that's better!

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The 'home team' seems to lack stamina or conviction, buying equities at high prices that others want to quit. It coming up to the lunch break in Shanghai and all today's gains have evaporated now, trend heading down.

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The party will have bought lots of shares already, so the battle continues. But of course in the long term,
ridiculously (and politically) elevated share prices does nobody any good. Unless of course its deemed a PR move. Or deception.

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And yet we still continue to somewhat generously call it a “market”.

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I strongly disagree with the naming of the automation of invoicing "robotisation".

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National unsold housing stock continues its climb from 35,176 yesterday (Real estate.co.nz) to 35431 today, a rise of 0.7% in 24 hours
Auckland unsold housing stock has seen a more modest rise from 13,334 yesterday (Real estate.co.nz) to 13,355 today, (perhaps there is some last minute buying before next weeks' ban comes into force).
Auckland rental offerings (trademe) slipped a touch from 4109 yesterday to 4087 today.

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Britain fell for a neoliberal con trick – even the IMF says so
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/economic-lies-neo…

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Cheers Andrewj. - always good to get a Guardian to balance to my Tory-graph leaning.

The UK chose a course of action after the financial crisis that has left it in a precarious position. Cheap debt refuelled the housing market in the South. Immigration was the weapon used to try and combat the aging demographic. The coalition of 2010 was a disaster because tough decisions were not taken. The pension age should have been raised straight away, rather than can-kicking a date out, there should have been deeper cuts to public spending and immigration should not have been used to prop up the Beveridge agenda set in the 1950's. Now there are just too many people. (official stats are well off the reality) and the country can't cope with it, services, infrastructure and schools are a shambles and as for societal breakdown, well that's a different story. Too many immigrants too fast is always an issue if your infrastructure isn't ready for them. The inflows consistently over 500,000, often more than half from outside the EU (so that could have been capped far earlier) have changed the landscape of politics. New Zealand's percentage immigration per head of population has been far greater than it has been in the UK, the extra space has meant that we don't feel as aggrieved here, but our infrastructure is already creaking and the politics is changing very quickly as new voting blocks and interests emerge......now 'Shall we have 2 Chinese, or a Chines and a Philipino or stick with a couple of Indian's.'
Things have occurred and it now needs intelligent minds to deal with them. When are you forming your political party?

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I thought about it but clouds got in the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=49n8uCwrzlk

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great song and a version I've not heard before...

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I don't have any clouds so perhaps I should get into politics and try and help sort things out.

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I have a great family and I didn't want to choose between them and politics. I think very few Mp's come out with intact families or at least a few bumps and bruises.

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Trump recently repeatedly called Washington DC a "vicious, vicious" place;

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/10/15/trump_to_60_minutes_…

Calling a spade a spade - and he's comfortable in that environment.

I read the JFK book you recommended. Pretty much sums up the reason I never looked back when leaving the States. All the Presidents since were to my mind absolute patsies to the CIA/Joint Chiefs. Trump does seem different.

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Yet Trump has power, perhaps it's people power?

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If you start a new party you need 500 members, I will be your first member.

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