A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; many rate changes, QV and realestate.co.nz report slowing housing markets, ANZ reports strong profits, jobless rate stable, swaps drop, NZD flat, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Housing NZ has cut their two, three and five year rates by between -20 and -54 bps, bringing their offers back in line with the major banks.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank has trimmed some TD rates for 18 months and longer. ICBC has cut most of its rate offers between -10 and -30 bps. NZCU South has trimmed -5 to -20 bps for its TD offers for terms 1 to 3 years.

MOVING UP
NZCU Baywide has raised its minimum personal secured loan rate from 8.90% (which was market leading) to 9.90% (and which is still low in comparison with most others). Their maximum in the range is unchanged at 21.90%

MOVING DOWN
According to QV, housing values are continuing to decline in Auckland and the rate of growth is slowing in much of the rest of the country. The decline in Auckland has now extended to five months in a row.

ANZ GETS STRONGER
ANZ NZ's half-year net profit after tax dropped -4% from last year's record high. And that is despite higher income and lower expenses, and loan impairments more than halving. Customer deposits rose +7% and lending rose +4%. Without the complications of accounting for discontinued operations, the core business saw its operating income rise +8% and its net interest income rise +3%. The bank is now set to deliver a new record profit for the full year unless the local economy stumbles before September 2019. ANZ NZ delivered 30% of the ANZ group cash profit and that is up from 25% in the full year to September 2018 and despite only having 19% of their employees in New Zealand and only 16% of their customer deposits here.

ASKING PRICES FALL, UNSOLD INVENTORY STABLE
The latest Realestate.co.nz figures show asking prices and new listings are easing while the total number of homes for sale is on the rise. Sellers in Auckland are dropping their asking prices as the market eases.

BETTER THAN WE TALK ABOUT
Today's release of the Q1-2019 labour force data reveals little change one way of the other. The participation rate rose a bit, the number of part-timers seeking more work fell. But one important shift is that weekly earnings are rising at a still-healthy rate, up +3.2% in the past year and about average for the past 18 months. It is kind of undermining the conversation among some commenters that there is no wage growth. Since March 2017, these weekly earnings are up +7.3% when CPI inflation is up +2.6%.

MORE CORPORATE DEBT
Vector has announced an offer of up to NZ$250 mln of 6 year, unsecured, unsubordinated, fixed rate bonds.

'MORE RISES COMING'
A survey sponsored by KiwiWealth shows 91% believe house prices will continue to rise in Wellington, 83% believe house prices will continue to rise in regional New Zealand, 77% believe house prices will continue to rise in Christchurch/Canterbury, 72% believe house prices will continue to rise in Auckland, and younger New Zealanders (45%), lower income earners (48%) and renters (54%) are more likely to think that it is not a good time for people to buy their first house.

MORE FINES FOR REPEATED FALSE REPRESENTATION BEHAVIOUR
Vodafone has been fined $350,000 for making false representations in invoices it sent to customers. They pleaded guilty and were convicted in relation to 14 charges under the Fair Trading Act for conduct that occurred between January 2012 and December 2018 affecting 29,000 customers. Last month retail telecommunications provider Spark was fined $675,000 after pleading guilty to charges relating to misrepresentations in its customer invoicing and a $100 welcome credit offer to new customers. and in 2016 Vodafone was fined $165,000 in the Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to making false price representations in breach of the Fair Trading Act. The charges related to invoices sent to customers who signed on to the ‘Red Essentials’ mobile phone plan in 2014.

DIVERGING
The NZX50 is sharply lower today, down -0.6% so far. In contrast, the ASX200 is up +0.8%.

LOCAL SWAP RATES FALL
Local swap rates fell sharply across the whole curve today, down about -6 bps. The UST 10yr rate is at 2.50%, down -3 bps. Their 2-10 curve is little-changed at +24 bps and their negative 1-5 curve still at -10 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down again today to 1.79% (-1 bp), the China Govt 10yr is also down -1 bp at 3.42%, while the New Zealand Govt 10yr is down -4 bps at 1.88%. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp at 1.80%.

NZ DOLLAR SLIPS
The NZ dollar is marginally lower at 66.5 USc . Against the Aussie we are fractionally lower at 94.3 AUc. We are also soft at 59.3 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now at 71.4.

BITCOIN UP
Bitcoin is higher today, up +2.8% at US$5,303. Bitcoin is tracked in the chart below.

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