A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; Kiwibank trims a mortgage rate, exporters chirpy, bank customers satisfied, mixed work safety record, Shanghai opens lower, swaps lower, NZD stable

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank has trimmed its 2 year fixed rate. More here.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes to report here.

IN GOOD HEART
New Zealand exporters surveyed by trade lobby group ExportNZ have found this group in good heart. Exporters were confident in the last 12 months, and this is rising going into 2019 with export markets to get a bigger focus. Australia continues to dominate Kiwi exports, with North America, Europe and Pacific Islands still holding strong trading positions. But the survey records these businesses have a growing ‘concern about increasing costs in New Zealand due to the coming industrial regulation’ and they expect it to be "a major barrier" when it comes to how they manage where they base their production. When asked about dealing with the Kiwi dollar in 2018, 23% have cited this as less manageable than last year, comparing with only 7% of exporters in 2017. Just 13% found the NZ dollar more manageable than last year, with the vast majority (64%) of exporters finding the impacts of the Kiwi dollar to be the same as last year.

MORE SATISFIED
New results from Roy Morgan show that customer satisfaction with banks in New Zealand in the 12 months to September 2018 was 79.1%, an increase from 77.0% in the 12 months to September 2017. The increase was a result of seven of the nine largest banks showing improved satisfaction, with TSB Bank the biggest improver up 5.9% points, followed by The Co-Operative Bank up 4.9% points and Westpac up 3.9% points. (At the same time a Deloitte survey in Australia on trust in banks has confirmed trust in banks is not high. There is not a New Zealand version released yet. But the 2017 version showed significantly higher trust levels here.)

FONTERRA'S AGM
Fonterra will hold its Annual Meeting on Thursday 8 November at 10:30am at its Lichfield site, corner State Highway 1 and Wiltsdown Road, Lichfield.

SOME PROGRESS, SOME NOT
In data released today from ACC claims and WorkSafeNZ records, about 56 people lost their life in workplace accidents per year over the past three years. Most of these tragedies happened in the agriculture sector (18), the transport sector (9), forestry (5), manufacturing (5), construction (4) and fishing (4). These six sectors account for 80% of all work-related fatalities. The overall rate of fatal work accidents is actually below the national target, so progress is being recorded. These 56 events happened among the nation's 2,182,500 full time employees. But there is a broader problem with non-fatal serious injuries. These amounted to 426,000 per year (not a typo) or 16.9 per 100,000 FTEs. This is above the Government target of 14.3/100,000 FTEs. 'Serious' means that, and involves urgent hospitalisation..

NOT IN GOOD HEART
The Shanghai stock exchange has opened more than -1.6% lower in early trading today, and still sinking. That makes the loss over the past week at nearly -4%% and since May 21, the loss has now breached -20%. So, we can now say they are in a bear market. Investors fear bear markets because the trend can get accentuated by fear and contagion. Wall Street however is only in a 'correction' (S&P500 is down -10%). The NZX50 is not even there yet, only down -8.5%, top-to-current. (And just for the record, the Milan Stock Exchange index is down -24% since May, well on its way to recording the Italian financial crisis of 2018.)

SWAP RATES LOWER
Swap rates are down -1 bp across the whole curve today. The UST 10yr yield is up slightly from this morning, now at 3.09%. The UST 2-10 curve is holding at +27 bps. Benchmark bond rates are holding as well. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.59% (unchanged from this morning), the China Govt 10yr is at 3.55% (unchanged), while the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.55% and down -2 bps from this morning's open. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.89%.

BITCOIN STUCK
The bitcoin price is now at US$6,425, and still basically unchanged over the past two weeks.

NZD UNCHANGED
The NZD is also unchanged at 65.2 USc. On the cross rates we are also going nowhere at 92 AUc, and 57.3 euro cents. That leaves the TWI-5 at just over 69.7. And just for the record, there was no RBNZ activity in September trying to manipulate our exchange rate. That makes it a full three years since this was last attempted (then, without any success).

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