Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Nothing to report.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either.
BUSINESS CONFIDENCE JUSTIFIES A DOVISH ORR
The NZIER Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion shows businesses have started 2019 more downbeat about the economy. Economists see these latest survey results pointing to fall in official interest rates coming at some point in 2019. May is a popular guess.
RENTS NOW HIGHER IN WELLINGTTON THAN AUCKLAND
The national 3 bedroom house rental is up to a record-high $480/week in March, according to MBIE data. That is a +6.7% rise in a year. In Auckland, the rent for that house is $660/week, equal to the rate in October 2018 and a +1.5% annual rise. In Wellington the new rate is up +7.3% to $665/week. In Christchurch, the year-on-year gain is +7.3% but only to $430/week, and a long way below the 2014 peak of $450/week.
WESTPAC LATEST NZ BANK TO OFFER APPLE PAY
Westpac NZ has become the last of the big four banks to offer its customers Apple Pay. The bank says Apple Pay's now available to its customers with eligible debit or credit cards issued by Mastercard and an eligible Apple device. ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Flexigroup and Latitude Financial Services already offer Apple Pay in NZ.
ITS NOW BTSR
National accounting firm Staples Rodway is rebranding as "Baker Tilly Staple Rodway" to emphasise its longstanding international network. There is no ownership change. It has offices in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, the Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Wellington and Christchurch.
MISLEADING?
Electricity company Contact Energy is facing seven charges under the Fair Trading Act for allegedly misleading customers in an advertising promotion which offered fuel discounts with AA Smartfuel alongside electricity plans, following a Commerce Commission investigation.
BIG HEADROOM
The banking system core funding ratio continues to greatly exceed the regulatory minimums. That minimum is 75%; the system average is at 87.2% as at February 2019.
A SUDDEN WORSENING
According to data released today by Stats NZ, the child poverty rate jumped to 16.5% or involving 183,000 children. What is especially disappointing about this jump is that for the previous 12 years there had been little change, with the 2017 child poverty rate only 14.2% and below the ten year average of 14.8%. Why the rate suddenly got worse in 2018 is not really clear. A child is in poverty in New Zealand when they are in a household where the income is "less than 50% of the median equivalised disposable household income, before housing costs". The rate jumps to 22.8% when household costs are included and that covers 254,000 children. But long term progress is being recorded for both 'material hardship' (down from 18.1% in 2013 to 13.3% in 2018) and 'severe material hardship' (down from 7.7% in 2013 to 5.8% in 2018). The backsliding in 2018 from 2017 is however very disappointing. All this data should be racing towards zero.
BIG DROP CONTINUES
In Australia, building consents fell more than -12% in February. For the year to February, they are down more than -10%. That means there have been more than 23,000 fewer dwelling consents in the past year than the year before. (That is about equivalent to the total number of houses in Invercargill.)
LOCAL SWAP RATES FALL
Local swap rates have fallen -3 bps across the board to 5 years, less for longer durations. The UST 10yr rate is up today and is now at 2.48%, a rise of +4 bps since this time yesterday. Their 2-10 curve is out to +17 bps while their 1-5 curve has narrowed somewhat, down to negative -12 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 1.84% (up +2 bps today), the China Govt 10yr is at 3.16% and up +8 bps, while the New Zealand Govt 10yr is at 1.87% and down -2 bps so far today. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp to 1.85%.
NZ DOLLAR SLIPS
The NZ dollar is now at 67.8 USc, after the downbeat QSBO took -½c off it. Against the Aussie we are down at 95.5 AUc, but holding better at 60.6 euro cents. The TWI-5 is lower at 72.5.
BITCOIN FIRM
Bitcoin is at US$4,145 and a small gain from this time yesterday.
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15 Comments
"Why the rate suddenly got worse in 2018 is not really clear" Inexperienced new government with no ability to manage things and instincts that tend towards putting most energy into fixing blame and covering things up rather than owning and fixing problems. Operating by Feelz and eliminating anything that looks like a performance measure to avoid being embarrassed doesn't improve the quality of policy or service delivery. Maybe they will improve with time. Maybe. But I can't remember a more inept government in NZ.
... $ 3 m or $ 4 million wasted in their electricity handout for superannuants ... they paid out to 25 000 who weren't eligible .... but , it'll cost more than that to chase them up to repay their windfall ... so its another wastage of taxpayers' monies ...
Tee heee heeeeee .... thank you Winston ... this government is far far more entertaining and inept than Wild Bill & the steady-as-she-goes Gnats could've ever been ...
Perhaps why there are so many sad, fatalistic doomsters out there? "The author found that the NYT had sunk into a very low mood since 1990, the “tone” of the news having become increasingly negative: a trend that began in the mid-1970s and that the author also found in the news archives of other countries. As Pinker notes, this finding contrasts sharply with the information we can use to measure human progress. Which leads Pinker to say: “ The world has made spectacular progress in every single measure of human well-being (…) Almost no one knows about it” and then to speculate that there is a contrast between the long timeframe over which this data was obtained and the immediacy that the media is interested in. The media, therefore, are unable to grasp the “big picture”, the wider view that proves that our society is doing better and what’s more, it does not even seem that this is their intention.[1]"
https://www.europeanscientist.com/en/editors-corner/yes-new-media-can-h…
The rental levels are insane. Simply too few houses overall - too expensive to buy and too expensive for the poorer in NZ to rent.
The only way out of this is to manage the immigration rate down in the short term until more houses can be built.
Our governments are incompetent.
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